So, instead of taking a good hard look at what was causing the failing schools to fail and what had to be done to fix them, the Old School Board along with the Old School Board’ s Old Superintendent-Stephen Fisher-the Old School Crowd conjured up this idea that the Old North Shelby School needed to be replaced with a newly constructed school building that was attached to a failing elementary school. That way they could kill two birds with one stone. They could just change the classification of the failing school by mixing in special needs students with the failing school student population. AND, throw some big money, Million$, to their favorite architect in the process.
The rest is history. Some old history and some recent history.
If you scroll on back to the first if this article, the “History Overview, you will find no mention of the NEW North Shelby School Project ever being built. You will NEVER see the figures where the New North Shelby School Project budget of $10 million ballooned to over $16.5 Million because of poor site selection and building construction on land that was unsuitable for such construction. If you look up the link to the North Shelby School on the internet, you will find the full text of the history of the North Shelby School that was not included at the first of this article that the full history of the North Shelby School history also never mentions anything about the new school construction and the carrying forward of the North Shelby School name. It is like the NEW North Shelby School just gobbled up the failing James Love Elementary School without leaving a trace of the failing James Love School. I reckon that is how the Old School Board and Old Superintendent Fisher pulled the wool over the eyes of the public as well as the NCDPI.
But these sets of Broken Dreams, Broken Promises, lies and corruption by the Old Cleveland County School Board and Superintendent Fisher had unintended consequences for the Old School Board. Robert P. Queen, a Registered and Licensed Civil Engineer was attending school board meetings while the Old School Board was planning for the NEW North Shelby School Project to be built on the James Love Elementary School property. Robert Queen recognized that the cost of the NEW North Shelby School Project would be prohibitive by the million$ of additional costs to level the steep slopes around James Love where the proposed new project was to be built. Unnecessary costs when compared with other available building sites without steep grades. Robert Queen informed the Old School Board of these problems and I reported them at the time.
The Old School Board was determined to be “stuck on stupid” and continue their plans to build the new project on James Love School property. (Those of us attending school board meetings at the time had not yet figured out the “failed school angle” that caused that particular site selection.) So, the Old School Board bought a 14-acre tract adjacent to James Love property with the intent of moving dirt off the additional tract to fill the slopes of the old track. Apparently thinking they were smart as they would reduce the cost of hauling the dirt from one tract to the other.
However, the Old School Board outsmarted themselves. Twice over. Soil testing of the remaining North Shelby site as well as the new tract showed that the top six feet of soil was not suitable for compaction that would be suitable for the new North Shelby School construction. The “bad” top layers of acres and acres of soil would have to be stripped away and hauled somewhere else. The soil below those acres and acres of “bad” soil would have to be3 scrapped up, moved to the building site, compacted and the “bad” soil would have to be brought back and spread around to level up the areas surrounding the construction site only for use in planting grass, scrubs and such. Robert Queen had warned the OLD School Board of that too. Only to be ignored again. Such a waste, bad construction site selection topped by ignoring good advice, obviously set Robert Queen on his course to run and win the Chairmanship of the Cleveland County School Board. That is a continuing story for other articles.
The windup of the bad soil conundrum was the ignorance and arrogance of the OLD School Board in building construction practices allowed them to be talked into still using the bad soil, with a grid of “piles” dug down to good soil and poured full of concrete to support the construction of the New North Shelby School project. The overall construction cost of the New North Shelby School ran up to $16.5 million. Eighty-six TIMES the ORIGINAL cost of the Old North Shelby School and $6.5 Million over budget.
Now, the New North Shelby School has suffered damage to poured concrete floors that have settled due to the poor soil as well as inadequate pile support. Cost accounting has shown that floors and doors have been repaired at the new school. But, hey! Robert Queen told them so. I am sure such stupidity by the CCS administration will not be repeated as long as Robert Queen, Joel Shores, Ron Humphries, Rodney Fitch and Danny Blanton are in charge at CCS.
So, now let’s discuss the REST of this story. How the Old North Shelby School, which could have been refurbished for further special need use as it was has moved from Broken Dreams and Broken Promises to Broken Windows. On top of More Broken Dreams and Broken Promises. And the same old lies and corruption.
Crime rates in Shelby have increased dramatically. Especially among young black men. In just one week in recent days, eight young men, five black and three white, have been arrested and jailed. Charged with first degree murder. Many of the eight were school age and several were known to be CCS Turning Point Academy drop-outs.
