An astute Grandmother Speaks out about the Dysfunctional CC School Board!! Letter received today and published by Robert A
Editor’s Note:This letter was received by Robert A today and republished for your reminder and rememberance of recent evil shenanigans by Robert Queen and his Waterboys. Robert A believes this letter is 100% true.
September 12, 2023
Good afternoon,
My name is Rebecca Johnson and I have a few things to say in regards to Monday night’s Cleveland County School Board meeting. Although I don’t have children in this system any longer, I will have grandchildren soon in Cleveland County Schools.
I believe that all children have a right to a pleasant experience in school with a top-of-the-line education. With that being said, I feel that we are slipping in many areas and one is respect for our community and the people.
I am not the only one that feels this way and it shows by the attendance at the meetings. When we see total disrespect coming from the school chairman against another board member what makes us think this is not normal for Mr. Queen? I say this because I was one of the many supporters of Mr. Blanton and Mr. Grigg whose message was strong and in support of community matters.
All during their campaign of 2022 they were mocked, and disrespected and this chairman tried in every way to discredit them while supporting people he said were true Christians and true conservatives meaning that Mr. Grigg and Mr. Blanton were not. Even after they pulled the highest votes for the 2022 School Board Elections, the harassment continued.
I have looked at the school policy on school visits, policy 5020 and the original policy states that all that was needed was notification to the school principal and sign-in. It also says visitors are encouraged to use the facilities made available to the public by the board.
At the first of the year, I do know that Mr. Grigg and Mr. Blanton were invited to go to Burns High to view the work done on the gym floor because I heard them talking about a time.
Mr. Grigg told me he gathered information about the problem and being new on the board sent emails to describe his findings to all. This did not sit well with Mr. Queen and he contacted the school attorney and requested an amendment to the original policy which now limited 2 board members from visits without the superintendent’s knowledge first or his approval. On the day this was amended 6 board members verbally degraded these 2 board members. This was information from the visitors who were in that training class the day this all happened. As you can see there is a pattern of hate or bias from 6 board members, especially the chairman, against 2 for trying to serve the community the way they promised.
This kind of behavior continues. On May the 18th a school prank happened at Burns High School. On the 19th these 2 board members started receiving information from very concerned staff and long-term teachers about the prank and how bad it was. People sent pictures, text, and emails which I have seen. It was vandalism if anything. Then the kids started sharing their pictures on FB, Snapchat, and Instagram inside the school and inside locked doors of teachers’ desks and file cabinets with documents only meant for their eyes only. However, when these board members (Blanton and Grigg) turned over the information they (Queen, Shores, Fitch, Taylor, Spurling, and Humphries) said it came from disgruntled employees.
Then there was the special-called meeting on the 30th which was not about the school prank but about board members’ conduct for answering questions from the news media about what happened.
I was there at that meeting. It was in fact about the prank because the kids had taken selfies in the school and their parents were afraid their kids wouldn’t get to walk at graduation were there to assist the Burns Principal in shifting the blame for the vandalism onto Mr. Grigg and Mr. Blanton and censure them. And off the Burns High School Principal who had allowed the vandalism in the first place.
I heard the school attorney say that it was about board conduct and that contacting the media and giving information could have seemed as though they represented the whole board. She did not say at any time that they did represent the board. Mrs. Sink went on to read parts of complaints against Mr. Grigg in which some said he was lying and all said he held a grudge against the Principal over the gym floor visit. Earlier that week I had seen a FB post made by Mr. Tommy Gayles where he had posted that Mr. Grigg was holding a grudge and I found it funny that the complaints I saw later had come almost word for word from Mr. Gayles original post. And, by the way, Mr. Gayles is a coach at Burns High. Also, a parent had posted in his comments that it wasn’t fair to not let the kids graduate and I found out this person along with most at the hearing had kids in the school building involved in the so-called prank (Vandalism). The other ironic thing was that the principal of that school opened the doors and allowed those kids in after hours and it was said that she bought some of the supplies. Baby oil and Vaseline and such. She was never punished one day for this. Mr. Grigg and Mr. Blanton were put on display that night and publicly disgraced, discredited, defamed, called liars, and censured for 90 days on made-up hearsay and false opinions, not any real evidence.
I talked to Mr. Grigg and he stated he had a long session with a civil rights and constitutional atty out of Charlotte who looked at all the evidence and stated that this board had violated his First, fifth, and Fourteenth Amendment rights by not allowing either a right to due process of law which is stated in the fifth and fourteenth amendment.
At the September 11th school board meeting Mr. Grigg accurately quoted the famous Attny Alan Dershowitz who is known for his constitutional work and said that “the day a man can be charged, tried and convicted without due process of the law this justice system will fall.” Mr. Grigg stated that was what happened to him on May 30th by the 6 other school board members. At the Sept 11th School Board meeting, Mr. Queen spoke and said no amendments were violated because they continued to let them vote and paid them. He rambled on to say that when you become a board member you lose part of your constitutional rights, which is laughable and false. Also, part of the 5th and the 14th say that no man shall be denied due process of law. Mr. Queen also said that Mr. Grigg did represent the whole board but as you can see in the video the School attorney only said it could have been seen as representing the board. She never said Mr. Grigg did say he represented the board in his statements to the media. I know for a fact that on May 30th 2 board members were denied any privileges to speak to defend themselves in any way against the false allegations they were accused of, which denied them their rights to due process of law. Charged, convicted, and sentenced by those 6 board members.
One last thing, Mr. Grigg stated he had requested 2 times to see the (school security) videos of the night and day in question and still had not had a response. Mr. Queen again called Mr. Grigg a liar, twice, for no reason. Mr. Grigg followed policy and sent a request to Dr. Shull at the end of August. I know this because I overheard him ask Dr. Shull if he got the email and Dr. Shull replied “Yes.”
A final thought on all this is that Mr. Queen does not deserve to be on any board that represents children or the public. He is a disgrace to the election process and we were fools in 2020 when he ran. But we will not be fools in 2024. I think he should be dismissed as chairman and put on probation for his continued power play of the board and this community. I will be at the next school board meeting too.
Sincerely,
Rebecca Johnson