What They Are Not Telling You About That School Bus Caper | Eastern NC Now

What They Are Not Telling You About That School Bus Caper

EDITORIAL TEAM

Often a narrative will go out which is built off of selective facts that do not fully represent what actually happened. Such a narrative has gone out recently regarding a school bus and a Beaufort County Board of Education member, but the narrative created by the school system’s central office omits key details and fudges others. One has to look at all the facts to make a judgment on this event.

The key figure in this drama is Board of Education member Stacey Davis. On Friday September 12, Ms. Davis learned that a student riding on a particular school bus was in possession of items taken from one of her children. She attempted to call county school Superintendent Matthew Cheeseman to deal with the matter, but he did not pick up his phone.

Unable to reach Cheeseman and knowing the property would likely disappear if someone did not act, she drove to where she found the bus had already stopped to let a student off. She signaled the driver that she wanted to communicate and he reopened the door. She entered the area of the bus steps and asked for the student to return the property which was done. She thanked the driver and left.

While on the bus, Ms. Davis had noted that it seemed overcrowded with 4 or 5 children per seat and had poor air circulation. Concerned about those conditions, she again called Superintendent Cheeseman. This time he answered his phone, and she told him of her observations and also mentioned some complaints related to buses she had heard from parents, asking him to investigate those matters. In the course of that conversation, she mentioned how it was she happened to be on the bus to observe the conditions. Cheeseman never made any comment suggesting she broke any laws during that telephone conversation.

Afterward, Cheeseman contacted the sheriff’s department to suggest charging Ms. Davis with a misdemeanor of stopping a school bus. Ultimately, the sheriff’s office agreed to do so. Still, Cheeseman did not discuss any of that with Ms. Davis. She only found out about the misdemeanor charge when she got a call from a reporter the next Monday afternoon.

Some unknown person or persons anonymously leaked information about the pending charge to the local media, including the local television stations. In a discussion with a reporter, Cheeseman then told the reporter about a videotaping system on each bus and provided the reporter with the videotape of Ms. Davis on the bus. That video tape was later broadcast by the station.

While it is generally acknowledged that parents will from time to time approach a stopped bus or even flag down a moving bus to give a student something he needed in school but had forgotten, there appear to be no incidents in the past of anyone being charged with stopping a school bus in this county as a result of such actions. That raises a huge question as to why it was charged in this instance.

When the district attorney’s office became aware of the charge, they immediately dismissed it as they did not see any chance of getting a conviction based on the facts as alleged. The DA’s email indicated that someone had been pushing him to go after Ms. Davis, but he did not let his office be used.

So why have the citizens of Beaufort County been treated to this circus: was it because Ms. Davis has been asking uncomfortable financial questions of the school administration, for example?