Lobbyist Considered for Winston Salem Forsyth Schools | Eastern NC Now

Lobbyist Considered for Winston Salem Forsyth Schools

BY: HOOD RICHARDSON

From here in Beaufort County the Winston Salem Forsyth School system looks like a model of what not to do in a school system. The latest example is for that school board to publicly consider the hiring of a lobbyist. They are broke and have to make up 46 million dollars of losses before the end of the school year. Their situation may be worse than that. Since the first of the year the Forsyth County Commissioners appropriated an extra several million dollars so they could write checks. This means they may have drained every account. They spent their fund balance down to zero. This is a big hole to climb out of even though their school system is at least ten times larger than Beaufort County.

The state auditor is kind when he says the system did not adjust spending to their real world when COVID ended. The federal government dumped hundreds of billions of dollars into all public coffers during the ill fated shut down of government and business. This is in addition to all the money and loans they made to business and individuals. We are paying for that incompetence with today’s inflation. The feds gave away so much money governments (schools included) had difficulty spending it. Some governments still have COVID funds they are trying to spend.

According to published information, the Winston Salem Forsyth School system gave bonuses to just about everybody. More than 75 million dollars. When COVID ended, they hired additional personnel even though their school enrollment went down. They had other problems, such as a poorly supervised purchasing and cost control system. One of the fixes to their system was to lay off several hundred employees, assistant principals, teachers and other staff.

I realized the school board and county commissioners are still sleeping peacefully when the Public Broadcasting System proudly reported the Winston Salem Forsyth School Board was considering hiring a lobbyist. At a minimum we are talking about a couple of hundred thousand dollars per year.

Apparently, a lobbyist or a team of lobbyists would help them get increased allotments for their staff, raise salaries for teachers and modify the state’s school performance grade model. Changing the performance grade model means lowering the standards. This is an easy way for superintendents and school boards to make themselves look good. The standards have already been lowered to an embarrassingly low level.

The disaster in Forsyth County happened for several reasons. One is poor or nonexistent management within the school system. Another is their county commissioners were apparently using the Beaufort County school appropriations method. That is not to ever ask for an accounting of how the money is being used. During the past approximately ten years the majority of the Beaufort County commissioners erroneously believed they can use last year’s expenses adjusted for inflation as the basis to award money to the schools for the coming year.

Beaufort County Commissioners no longer demand accounting for what the money is being used for. I have asked for information that, when given to me, is in a form as to not be understandable. This is lip service because the request, in order to be effective, has to be made by a majority vote of the Board. The majority of the Board refuses to make the request, so we get nothing. The Gang of Four, Fake Frankie Waters, Randy Walker, Ed Booth and Jerry Langley allow the school budget to be negotiated in the back room.

This lack of accountability is why students are not taught cursive writing, are exposed to new math (no math), are not correctly taught the founding fathers or the Constitution, CRT (critical race theory), DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and are exposed to sexual orientation drivel.

The Forsyth County government system sounds a lot like Beaufort County. Maybe they are our sister county.

Another blast from the past, Doctor Donald Phipps, former Beaufort County School Superintendent, has been hired to be the Winston Salem Forsyth Superintendent. He starts December 1, 2025.

There is an opportunity to bring better management to Beaufort County and our school system. The 2026 elections can produce the needed changes on both boards. Both the school board and county commissioners have a majority of Republicans. Eight of the nine school board members and five of the seven commissioners are Republicans. You would never know it by the way they vote. The Beaufort County Republican Party prefers to support RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) rather than conservative Republicans.

Recently they seized on what they thought was an opportunity to get rid of school board member Stacey Davis over her stopping a school bus on behalf of her child. Republican Chairman Carolyn Garris and Representative Keith Kidwell publicly demanded her resignation simply because the Big Cheese was demanding the Sheriff bring charges. She had been neither charged by the District Attorney nor convicted of anything. The Big Cheese along with Garris and Kidwell saw an opportunity to eliminate a conservative. Talk about jumping the gun and getting shot in the butt.

Beaufort County votes more than 60 percent MAGA conservative. There is no reason we cannot have a MAGA school board and board of commissioners.

The Conservative Club is looking for conservatives to run for seats during the 2026 elections. Registration to run is not far away, during December of 2025. Let us make several changes.