Why the bow-down to the superintendent? | Eastern NC Now
Conversation regarding the closing of S. W. Snowden
Why the bow-down to the superintendent?
Public comments to the Beaufort County School Board by Buzz Cayton
He is hired- help. The School Board does not seem to understand that. He threatens them with his buyout which can probably be handled by the State requirements and a good attorney. He sits at the front of the room for School Board meetings where he can whisper to the Chairman and reads the rules of the meeting like he is a member of the board. He should be sitting with the staff and reporting on all of the shortcomings of his public schools that are forcing students who can afford it to private schools and presenting plans for improvement. He is not a city planner, engineer, demographer or transportation specialist. Yet the board listens to him like he is one.
Aurora did not just happen to be in the shape that it is in. This has been deteriorating for a https://rrsocialwork.ru/ while, and he did not take care of it. People who could leave and go to Pamlico County have done so because of his deteriorating program in Aurora. It was a sore on his record and then it became a scab and now to get rid of the disease he wants to cut it out so it will go away. The poor grades will be dissolved into the Chocowinity school system, and he will be a hero.
What happened to his stand on CRT and DEI? Those are mostly black kids down there now. Let’em ride the bus. This whole myopic bunch has forgotten that we are dealing with people that are more important than dollars. A black first grader should not have to leave home in the dark, ride a school bus for an hour or more to school and come home in the dark in the wintertime, because the superintendent could not handle the job and the school board was too shortsighted to know the difference.
And the School board, County Commissioners and the uninformed public is going to stand by and watch a part of Beaufort County die, claiming to save a few bucks, when the real numbers show it will cost them money in the long run. Aurora is part of Beaufort County, and it deserves to be protected, not sluffed off.
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Bubba said:
( May 31st, 2025 @ 8:27 pm )
Cheeseman is a control freak and there are way too many spineless empty suits on the school board. That is a bad combination for the citizens.
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WE simply have too many weak minded individuals on the school board. Some of them talk a good game but you cannot count on then when the chips are down.
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You hit the nail on the head, Buzz. There has been no proper long range planning by the School Board or by the superintendent. It is all thrown together at the last minute. Heck, there has not even been proper short range planning. Look at Cheeseman's failure to discover that they did not own 4 acres of where they wanted to put the new mega elementary in Washington and had to scramble at the last minute, costing taxpayers half a million dollars. It is like we have the Three Stooges running things in the county schools.
And Frankie Waters in the mix? The same Frankie Waters who bankrupted Tri County Telephone during the years he ran that so its carcass had to be sold to an out of county company. THAT Frankie Waters? taxpayers are in real trouble. |
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This entire group seems to treat this like a dart game—tossing a few million dollars here, a few million there, just to see what sticks. And if it doesn’t work out? No problem—they’ll just build another one.
Who has been hired to assess what’s actually needed? Cheeseman? None of the current School Board members have the credentials to make these decisions without input from qualified demographers, engineers, and traffic consultants. This “seat-of-their-pants” approach to running our county must end. It’s clear we need a serious house cleaning. |
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Buzz, the "superintendent problem" is endemic in the public schools. I remember in my first year in law school almost fifty years ago when State Senator Dick Deeb (R-Pinellas) commented to a political meeting I attended that "too many school board members think the superintendent is their boss instead of their employee". That seems to sum up too much of public education, where the bureaucrats rule and the elected policy makers sit quiet.
Senator Deeb had a solution. He introduced a bill in the Florida Senate to make the office of public school superintendent of Pinellas County elected by the voters of the county, not appointed by the school board. The bill passed the Senate but when it got to the House, a number of legislators realized they had the superintendent problem in their county, too, and a bunch of counties got added to the bill. That bogged it down and it never made it out of the House. In some counties with solid conservative school board majorities, they have no problem in standing up to a superintendent whose proposals they disagree with. The Craven County School Board, this year voted down their superintendent's proposed budget, for example. I remember back when I was in high school and an undergraduate at Duke and we had a split school board in Mecklenburg County where I then lived. The three newest members had been elected by the conservative Concerned Parents Association and there were four moderate to liberal holdovers from the previous cycle. The superintendent kept ignoring the three conservatives. Then one meeting, the superintendent made a report that was very adverse to an issue dear to the heart of the most moderate of the holdover members. Conservative Jane Scott saw her chance when she saw the reaction on his face, so she immediately moved to fire the superintendent, the upset moderate seconded, and it passed 4 to 3. As long as the career path of school superintendents is to move from one county to another, to larger counties with better paying positions, I think the superintendent problem will remain. The solution is to elect strong school board members who remember they are the boss, not the superintendent, and keep a firm hand on the tiller themselves. When the time comes again in Beaufort County, another solution to the problem is to look for a superintendent looking for his last posting at a place he wishes to retire. That way, we should get a superintendent more interested in truly serving our county instead of mainly advancing his career. |
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It is my understanding that since the Beaufort County Superintendent works at the behest of the Beaufort County School Board, he not only works for elected school board members, but for the people of Beaufort County by that association as we are their constituents.
Why is it that this Cheesy fellow is always working on his accolades from his peers while here, and his resume for later. Why does not the Beaufort County School Board manage his performance here now, rather than aid Cheeseman's aspirations for later? |
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This is ALL about Cheeseman building his resume for that next job. School consolidation is trendy with the education establishment. He does not give a tinkers damn about the kids in Beaufort County, which he will be leaving for greener (better paying) pastures. All be wants is something for his resume. And we have too many pathetic school board members who kowtow to the Big Cheese instead of working for the parents and taxpayers.
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