With the time clock clicking down to Zero, the father state, “It looks like I am not going to get an answer to my question, am I?” and sat down.
4. The fourth speaker was the mother of Speaker number two. She had endured through all the nonsense of a closed-door hearing where the minutes were falsified, had made numerous phone calls only to be ignored, she had heard all the nonsense from Shearra Miller and now it was her turn to speak-for three minutes. She did not hold back or mince words.
Speaker Number 4 begins by stating to Speaker No. 1 that she was sorry that his son had received a four-day suspension (for nothing) and a girl can come into class (with a razor blade) and slit her wrist and get nothing.”. Speaker No 4 then asks Chairman Miller directly “are you aware of the by-laws that you have to abide by?” A direct question. Miller says, “Yes Ma’am.” The speaker then asks Miller if she was aware of several NC Laws about the conduct of meetings and Miller starts in that she was not going to answer questions. The speaker didn’t miss a beat. She correctly continues that the CCS minutes were illegal because they did not fairly and accurately describe what transpired in the meeting as North Carolina law requires. “But your minutes say Nothing-UNACCEPTABLE.” The mother goes on to say that “if someone goes into these minutes, they are supposed to be able to tell what happened in the meeting as if they were in the meeting themselves.” Also as required by NC Law. The speaker says you don’t do your minutes right “and I’m tired of it.” Then the speaker turns to the other Board Members, “She (Miller) came out in the March 11 meeting asking for approval of the minutes-didn’t you even know what you are approving? “Did YOU read them??” Nobody speaks, so the mother says, “No, you didn’t!!” The only person who questioned the minutes was Danny Blanton.” (The speaker was 100% right. Scroll back a few articles for more on that.) “And she (Miller) sits there and says ‘Motion denied’ (to Blanton’s motion to amend the minutes) and you all say Aye, Aye, Aye! Well, your minutes are illegal”
Speaker Number 4 was just warming up. And since I had attended those meetings she mentioned, I recalled that she was 100% correct.
The mother states that “And here I am telling you how to do this (run your meetings) but I shouldn’t have to do this.” “This is an embarrassment for us” (A Board that cannot or will not run their meetings in accordance with NC laws and their own policies). “When you have a closed-session-you have to come out to an open session to approve any actions that were taken” (or not taken in this instance). Again, the speaker was totally correct regarding NC Law. The mother continued “That’s in your bylaws-you didn’t do it.” (Another reason the CCS board should be required to have a local attorney at all their meetings to advise them of what the law is. It appears obvious that the CCS Board does not do this so they can do illegal stuff and then think they can get by with it. I suspect the Commissioners present and hearing all of this came to that same conclusion.)
Now the speaker, finished with presenting the procedural facts of the matter, lowers the boom on the crooked School Board. “YOU ARE CLUELESS!!” she says and everybody in the place knew she was right.
Then she says “There is another law- (she gives the number) and says I suggest YOU write it down.” That laws says that any elected official who takes an oath of office and willfully and corruptly refuses to follow the laws they have sworn to can be removed from office. The speaker then says to the CCS School board that “each and every one of you tonight should step down from office because YOU are an embarrassment! The whole School Board is an embarrassment. Every single one of you go home and read your bylaws. Learn what you are doing.” Then the mother goes back to her seat.
The whole School Board was speechless. You could have heard a pin drop at that instant. The only sound being my pen writing down as much as I could as fast as I could. In all my time of attending School Board meetings, County Commissioner’s meeting, Cleveland Community College Board of Trustee meetings, never have I witnesses such a truly clueless board ever scolded so forcefully, so clearly, so accurately and so effectively as this scolding this mother delivered to the CCS School Board at this March 25, 2019 School Board meeting.
At first the School Board just sat there dumbfounded and silent. Then School Board Chairman Shearra Miller says “Next on our agenda are school board policies presented for first read….” And goes on like nothing ever happened.
But, me being me, I smelled a rat!! Why was the School Board, as silly and as stupid as they seemed, covering up stuff that should never be covered-up? Falsifying documents and such? Money. Somewhere and somehow there is money involved is my speculation. Then I happened to come across the March 17, 2019 Shelby Star with a big front-page article titled A New Approach. Subtitled: Grants help Cleveland County Schools improve student mental health. (https://www.shelbystar.com/news/20190317/cleveland-county-schools-looks-to-improve-mental-health-of-students) A big money grant ($1.7 Million) had been obtained by CCS to provide counselors for three schools. Burns Middle, Washington Elementary and Number 3. The girls who cut themselves and are proud of it and brag about it, definitely are candidates for mental health services; attend Shelby Middle School. And CCS, always out for more grant money-whether for a good cause or bad, would want to expand the grants to all 29 schools. Up to $17 Million per my calculation. Check out this Shelby Star Article, more like a planted press release than a news article, and see what you think. See if YOU smell a rat too. Especially the part that says half of the 15,000 CCS students need mental health services because they are poor and miscellaneous other reasons. Notice that girl students slitting their wrists are not mentioned at all in this article.
I am going to finish up this article right here for brevity. There will be another article coming out soon about another item on the agenda that shows just how clueless the Cleveland County School Board is. In another important area.
For your convenience, the March 11, 2019 letter from Chairman Shearra Miller to the family of Speakers 2, 3 and 4 are provided for your convenience. I will warn you in advance that the letter provides no information about anything and is 95% self-serving about how good the educational experience is at CCS when it obviously is not so good.
Also, I am sharing an email that was shared with me. This email from CCS Supt. Fisher to the family of Speakers 2, 3 and 4 states that the “Allegation” in the March 11, 2019 Shearra Miller letter only applied to the razor blade, that Fisher says was a pencil sharpener, that the girl in class cut her wrist with. That the incident of the girl cutting her wrist was indeed an “incident.”