CCS School Board Cancels Before and After School Programs!!!   31 County Jobs lost? More jobs will be lost as economy picks up??   March 25th CCS Board Work Session was a HOAX!!!   Eye witness Report and commentary by Robert A. Williams

The School Board’s so-called Work Session held on March 25, 2022, was a hoax and a FUBAR (Fouled Up Beyond All Recognition). From Start to Finish. In real life, a governmental board “Work Session” is completely different than a “Board Meeting.”

 

Board Meetings in North Carolina are regulated by law and are held on a monthly (or periodic) basis to conduct the “official business of the agency”. They are open to the public; fair and accurate minutes are kept such that a person not attending the Board Meeting can read the minutes and fully understand what transpired as if the person reading the minutes was actually there. At Board Meetings the Chairman presides over the meeting and the agenda items are specific. The Chairman, other than overseeing the progress of the Board Meeting agenda items, has no more authority than any other Board member.

 

Work Sessions are meetings where the members of the Board get together for more general “planning” discussions on what the board’s priorities are, to set agency goals and such, and instruct the agency manager on how these priorities and goals are to be carried out for future approval and vote. At Work Sessions, The Chairman also oversees the progress of the meeting, also has no more authority than any other board member and the priorities and goals are decided on more by consensus than by actual votes. The votes would come later as the details are worked out by the staff. Such work sessions are often held at a “retreat.” High-dollar retreats are always at taxpayer expense.

 

I have attended every School Board meeting for the past 9 years. At least 90% in person. The other 10% by video. 100% for the present School Board under Chairman Robert “Luke” Queen. I can truly say that Luke Queen’s meetings and this past week’s Work Session did NOT meet minimum standards as far as the law, content, and especially transparency!

 

And, if you can believe it, the new Rogue Republican School Board majority is much worse than that.

 

If you remember back before COVID hit the United States and the World, the Make America Great AGAIN campaign led by President Donald J. Trump was in full swing. Gas prices were below $1.50 per gallon in Cleveland County. Unemployment was at record LOWS. Employment for African Americans was at ALL-TIME HIGHS. Everybody that wanted a job could find a job. America was producing MORE oil and gas than America needed and we were exporting. The Keystone XL Pipeline was able to pump more crude oil than we needed, even after we filled out strategic oil reserves to the brim. Basically. Trump was bringing jobs BACK from Mexico AND China. The American economy was booming. WE didn’t have to call Saudi Arabia begging for oil. And when we did call anybody, they answered the phone on the first ring.

 

AND, Cleveland County Schools had before school and after school programs where working parents, one parent or two-parent families, had a safe place to send their children while they went to work to make a better living for their families.

 

And they COVID hit. And the 2020 Elections were close enough insight to provide a weapon for Democrats to use against the otherwise unbeatable President Trump. But, how could COVID be best used as a weapon against President Trump??? The most effective political weapon against President Trump was to shut down the economy. But how could the economy be shut down?

 

Shut down schools was the answer. When you shut down schools, where do the kids have to go? The KIDS don’t go anywhere-THEY STAY HOME. When the kids stay home, where to the parents go? They have to STAY HOME TOO. To Watch after the kids.

 

One could also ask when the schools shut down, where do the teachers go? In Cleveland County, the teachers keep on going to school drawing their full pay. Which makes the Teacher’s Unions very, very happy! I estimate $100 Million in salaries were paid to teachers and administrators while the Cleveland County Schools were shut down, supposedly because of COVID. Even though not even ONE case of COVID existed in Cleveland County when CCS first shut down. But that is an article for another time.

 

So, the kids are home because the schools are shut down. The parents are home watching their kids, so they are not at work. Companies have to shut down because their workers are NOT at WORK. And the economy is severely disrupted. AND, the Democrats blame it all on President Trump. And many low information voters are stupid enough to believe it.

 

Now, fast forward through the many, many, many, many delays is getting the schools restarted. The phony mask mandates, The Election that was stolen from President Trump, the election that put Robert “Luke” Queen and the other Rogue Republicans on the Cleveland County School Board. The phony January 6, 2021 insurrection. The swearing-in (and at) Joe Biden as President. Biden’s shutting down the Keystone Pipeline, CCS found teaching Critical Race Theory and all of that.

 

Now, it is March 25, 2022, and the CCS School Board is holding a so-called Work Session.

 

Although schools are now in full operation, many businesses did not survive the COVID bad times. Many more businesses are still not fully recovered. And MANY parents are still at home watching their kids because they do not have the full-time jobs they had before COVID.

 

So, what dire predicament does CCS find itself in now?

 

There are only 31 out of 14,000 students enrolled in the Before School and After School programs at Cleveland County Schools. CCS is losing money!!! Waaaahhhh, Waaaaahhh! Waaaahhhh!

 

As I sat there in the audience at this CCS School Board Work Shop listening to this whining, several thoughts cross my mind:

• First, these programs probably didn’t do much for educating 14,000 children. But the time could be used to help children catch up some with their being out of school for close to two years.
• Many parents are still home watching their kids because schools shut down, they had to stay home, they lost their jobs, and still are out of work.
• For those 31 kids in those programs; those 31 parents have jobs now but are likely to lose their jobs again when they have to stay home to watch their kids before and after school.
• Once these programs are canceled, it will certainly be hard to ever get them reinstated when and if this economy in Cleveland County ever gets back to where it was before COVID and BEFORE Joe Biden and Robert “Luke” Queen and his Rogue Republicans.
• During COVID when schools were closed and CCS meals went from 14,000 to the less than 3,000 that CCS delivered, CCS allegedly lost Hundreds of thousands of dollars. Many, many times less than the Before and After School Programs supposedly are losing.
• Closing these programs will certainly negatively impact workforce development and economic development in Cleveland County. Something that almost everybody else in Cleveland County wants to improve, not destroy.

 

Folks, there were plenty more instances of “bad things” that happened at the March 25, 2022, School. Board Work Session. This is just what I started with. And, unfortunately, you will only have my word for it. But the School Board chose NOT to video broadcast this meeting. For the obvious reason that they didn’t want anybody seeing them at their worst. Or see Luke Queen, once again, speaking corruptly, hateful, and mean against Danny Blanton’s suggestion to “rebid” the auditoriums for Burns and Crest High Schools now that prices have started to stabilize or even go down a little.