Answer to “Let’s Get it Right!” | Eastern North Carolina Now

Answer to “Let’s Get it Right!”

BY:  HOOD RICHARDSON

Donald Shreve, a member of the Beaufort County School Board, is feeling the heat for his turncoat vote and motions to close the S. W. Snowden School. Beaufort County Now published an article last week written by Shreve. Shreve tries to salve his soul for what he did. Plenty of people remember how Shreve represented himself as a staunch conservative Republican who would stand up against the liberal education system.

Shreve accuses the Conservative Club of bullying. It was Shreve who came to the Club professing to have the strength and courage to fight off the liberals who are running our education system. Shreve said all of the things the Club wanted to hear in order to get their vote, their money and their work to help him get elected. Shreve represented that he would do the things required to turn our school system back to teaching cursive writing, give teachers control of their classroom, eliminate critical race theory (CRT) and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), restore classical math teaching and defeat liberal management of the school system, get rid of gender influences, etc.

The Conservative Club campaigned for Shreve, donated hundreds of dollars to get Shreve elected and provided hundreds of man hours of work addressing envelopes. The Club has never told Shreve how to vote. He told us how he would vote. The question now is: “Is the abuse on Shreve or the Club?”

The core tool of liberals is the consolidation of schools into large bureaucratic systems. These systems remove parents from the school, eliminate textbooks, and introduce liberal curriculums that are purchased, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Any competent teacher should be able to prepare their own lesson plan. Shreve pretended to be conservative but when it came time to show his true colors, he voted for consolidation of the John Cotton Tayloe School with Eastern Elementary and within that same year he voted to consolidate the Snowden School with Chocowinity.

In his article, Shreve states that the Mayor of Aurora made comments saying the mayor was in favor of closing Snowden. It is alarming that Shreve would believe this to be true. What mayor would ever support the banning of education in his town. We have investigated this falsehood and can find no person including the mayor who will verify that Shreve is telling the truth. Mayor Cliff Williams campaigned long and hard to keep Snowden open. Believing this and repeating it makes Shreve’s common-sense judgment highly questionable.

Shreve goes on to make another alarming bad judgment statement about information used to make the decision to close Snowden. “We also had privileged information related to personnel which cannot be revealed to the public due to confidentiality/privacy policies.” The open meeting laws in North Carolina are very specific and strong about secret information used to make public decisions. It looks like Mr. Shreve violated the open meetings’ laws. It takes two to tango so there must be someone else in this with him. Or perhaps this violation took place in a closed session meeting of the School Board.

Shreve says the Board was handed the task of making the decision. The process could not start without a vote of the Board to begin the process. That requires a motion, a second and a vote. It was the RINO Shreve who made the motion to begin the process of closing Snowden. Shreve is trying to sidestep the fact that his mind was made up from the beginning to close Snowden. Shreve, again, is trying to deceive us.

In another paragraph, Shreve tries to tell us how qualified he is to make the decision to close Snowden.

He fails to show any financial experience. All the information we have about the cost of closing Snowden is not verified by any competent finance person. The Big Cheese put out an unsigned, unidentified document claiming the school system would save 1.76 million dollars if Snowden were closed. This was quickly debunked because he is claiming the 1.44 million dollars that is paid to teachers by the State of North Carolina, not Beaufort County, is a savings to Beaufort County. The Gang of Four Commissioners voted against obtaining any evaluation of the true savings. Neither the School Board nor the commissioners got any reliable information about the savings. When all is considered, it looks like closing Snowden will actually cost the County money. That is the reason for the financial secrecy.

Shreve tries to hide behind his version of Christianity. Christians are not deceitful. Shreve sought approval from the Conservative Club, after he got that he went away and sought the approval of the Big Cheese. He failed to live up to his promises. Now he is trying to get the approval of the public. Shreve is a great example for Christian teachings because, based on his behavior, it is only through the grace of God that he will ever walk through the Pearly Gates. Shreve is seeking forgiveness for his political sins.

Shreve is not alone in his political deceit. There are several other Republicans who represented themselves as independent minded Republicans to get elected to the School Board. There are plenty of questions to be asked of Gary Carlton and Daniel Hudson to say nothing of Terry Williams. Terry Williams is on both sides of closing Snowden. He was for it before he was against it.

After 28 years of office, I can tell you that nothing shows a person’s true character better than to give him the independence of elected office.

The Conservative Club is not giving up on the school system. We are actively seeking people to run for the School Board and all other offices. Contact any member. Be careful of political parties, they will talk you out of running to protect their favorite incumbents. The primary election process is available for all to run in. You do not need the approval of any politician or political party.