Some Refreshing Change at School Board Meetings | Eastern NC Now

Some Refreshing Change at School Board Meetings

BY:  EDITORIAL TEAM

Beaufort County School Board meetings have been a dull thud until recently. They had a little more life after the 2024 elections when more conservatives were elected. However, the entertainment was mostly watching some of the supposed conservatives like Daniel Hudson, Gary Carlton and Donald Shreve metamorphose into RINOs (Republicans In Name Only). After that it was watching the two remaining conservatives, Charles Hickman and Stacey Davis, struggle with trying to be heard and watching them get beat down by the other seven board members.

Gary Carlton’s resignation turned into a good thing with Steve Rader replacing him. Steve Rader, with his strong and lengthy background in politics, government and policy hit the ground running. That is, he knew what his authority and rights as a board member are from the first day. This allowed him to maneuver with the agenda to get some very important policy items heard and reviewed, even though the Board is run by the Gang of Five consisting of four RINO’s and one Democrat. The present board has eight Republicans and one Democrat. One would think the board would be conservative; however five members are under the thumb of the Big Cheese.

The Gang of Five (T. W. Allen, Carolyn Walker, Terry Williams, Eltha Booth and Donald Shreve) have had a problem facing the public about sexual teachings, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion), and CRT (Critical Race Theory). Steve Rader placed on the agenda an item requesting policy be reviewed relating to these issues. All of his policy issues were assembled into a folder about 4 inches thick and given to the board about two weeks ago. Some policies were addressed at the Tuesday October 21 meeting. The majority of the board agreed to remove woke references from several school policies. More policy review will be done each month until the entire policy is addressed.

After reviews are complete, the hard work begins. Making sure teachers are actually following the revised policies. Teachers will need to be called out and disciplined when they fail to follow the policy. Proving they are not following the policy will be hard to do. There is the issue of whether or not discipline for failure to follow policy will be handled as a public or confidential issue. The push will probably be to handle it confidentially. If noncompliance issues are handled as confidential personnel policy, how will the public know the new policy is being enforced?

We presently have a problem with the Big Cheese telling us certain things are not being done but there is information to the contrary. Effective enforcement of the new policy probably will not happen until there is a majority of true conservatives on the school board.

Steve Rader, a lawyer himself, pushed for replacement of the school board attorney. The present legal service is provided by Tharrington and Smith, a Raleigh Law Firm. The lawyer working Beaufort County lives in Durham County and was Chairman of the Durham County Democrat Party at one time. Several issues go with this. A lot of his representation is done absentee or by Zoom. He has no experience with Beaufort County issues or citizens other than what he is fed by the Big Cheese. This became very apparent when the Big Cheese had the Democrat attorney send Republican Stacey Davis a threatening letter while she was a candidate for the school board in 2024. Some say this was election interference because the Big Cheese was trying to protect his pocket vote who Davis was running against. A local attorney would have known the situation and handled it differently.

During discussion Terry Williams and Daniel Hudson stated that the whole idea for a local attorney came from them. We have never seen them with an original idea before. It looks to us like they were trying to steal Steve Rader’s fire.

There was a lot of discussion about how to hire a local attorney and who he would report to. Steve Rader noticed that the Big Cheese had arranged the RFP (employment advertisement) so the local attorney would report to Tharrington and Smith. During the discussion Terry Williams stated that: “He would never vote for anyone other than Tharrington and Smith to Represent the School Board.” Steve Rader pointed out that we did not need two law firms, we could do as we have done in the past and hire expert representation for specialized issues if they arose. This is how almost all government agencies operate. The Gang of Five was intent on satisfying the Big Cheese and ultimately voted to do what the Big Cheese wanted. It makes one wonder why we elect a school board if the Big Cheese gets his way every time.

Lynn Whittington, Terry Williams’s daughter, is principal of the Chocowinity Grammar School which received more than 80 of the transferred students from S. W. Snowden. She reported to the Board that all, every single one, of those students and their parents are very happy with their transfer and are 100 percent content with the Chocowinity schools. Knowing human nature, this is hard to believe.

The first hour or more of each meeting is a photo op for the Big Cheese. Awards are given to about 40 students and there are meaningless reports from schools. This part of the meeting has little to do with the running of schools. It allows the Big Cheese to get his photograph taken with a lot of teachers and students. None of these photo opportunities are shared with board members or the chairman of the board.

The Board approved an eighty-thousand-dollar expenditure to continue a computer reading program called Lexia Wonders. Apparently, there is little use of textbooks. No board member questioned whether or not DEI or CRT or woke pronoun usage was taught in these materials.

There is no doubt these meetings are more interesting with Steve Rader on the Board.