Editor’s Note: Recent national news reports Public Education in ALL of the United States has failed to properly educate Public School students at record levels. 35% of students nationwide cannot read or write at a proficient level. Cleveland County is worse than that. The feeble CCS’s Number One Strategic Goal is to bring third grade students up to proficient levels by 2030. This means that every two-year-old child, and older, alive in Cleveland County today, are already doomed to poor public educational prospects at CCS. And, worse than that, the Cleveland County School Board of Education, Robert Queen, et al, has NOT assigned Superintendent Stephen Fisher and the CCS staff any accountability, or responsibility, or performance measures to ensure that the 2030 goal will ever be met.
Also, reports out of Georgia have stated that the 14-year-old school mass shooter (4 killed-2 teachers and 2 students-and 9 seriously injured) was the victim of extensive bullying at school. A major problem at CCS that the School Board MAJORITY and the Superintendent have refused to admit to or even acknowledge. Along with the fact that CCS schools are mostly ALL failing to meet the reasonable expectations of most caring CC parents. Most CC Employers too.
Folks, the September 9, 2024 CCS School Board meeting, which lasted only 32 minutes despite all the problems at CCS, was mostly ho-hum! The obnoxious suck-up School Board Member Walter Scott Spurling was absent and not on the phone. The defeated “lame duck” CCS Chairman Robert Queen was unusually calm. Apparently due to his recent selection to be a part of The Hunt Institute, apparently a group of has-been politicians located in Cary, NC who, according to Google, work at the intersection of policy and politics. Since Cary is a number of miles away from Raleigh, the NC General Assembly must not have to deal very much with The Hunt Institute and Robert Queen.
This particular School Board Meeting started out in its most recent mode of unanimous votes to approve inaccurate minutes of previous meetings without question or discussion. Same thing with incomplete and uninformative Committee Meeting Reports. Although the leaking Burns and Crest High School Roofs are finally on the “Things to do list” after all the floods during the spring rains. And it will probably be many more floods during the fall rains and bad winter weather before the roofs are finally repaired.
The CCS School Board meeting pace picked up dramatically near the end of the meeting agenda during Citizen Participation. There were two speakers.
1 Junie Barrett was the first speaker. (For those that might remember the Burns High School student that was abandoned in Cleveland County when her parents left CC for parts unknown. Junie Barrett took in this smart student into her own home, got her a custodial job at Burns High School, etc. The student was not only smart, she was very smart. She won a full scholarship to Harvard University when she graduated Burns. Then, Junie Barrett drove the student all the way to Boston, Mass., where Harvard University is located. There is no doubt, from any sane person, that Junie Barrett is an advocate for students in general and especially for students that need some help.
Junie Barrett spoke to the CCS School Board about how CCS employees, including teachers, were retaliated against by CCS leadership if they complained about things not being right at CCS. And were therefore afraid to speak out. Junie Barrett stated that SHE was NOT AFRAID to SPEAK OUT. Junie Barrett informed the CCS School Board that Bullying of students and staff was also common at CCS. And, nothing effective was being done about it.
When Junie’s time ran out and she began walking away, Chairman Robert Queen stopped Junie and asked Junie to provide her specific information to Titus Hopper for resolution. Junie Agreed.
However, this was OBVIOUSLY a ploy by Chairman Robert Queen to shift school board responsibility away from the School Board to others. And, when those others might not do anything (which is usual) regarding the matter, Queen and the other School Board members would say that protocol was followed and there was nothing else that they could do.
Perhaps Junie should have stated this to Robert Queen and suggested the School Board Members should immediately call a Closed Session and invite Titus Hopper to attend so Junie could have provided her information to EVERYBODY. And keep the School Board from wiggling out of THEIR responsibility.
2 The next speaker was Rod Powell. A candidate for the 2024 CCS School Board elections.
Rod Powell also spoke about the bullying going on at CCS and how this bullying must stop. And offered some solutions to the bullying problem at CCS. At a previous School Board meeting, candidate Rod Powell also spoke about the various distraction problems students with cell phones were having and offered solutions to those problems too. It is obvious that Rod Powell is thinking about problems at Cleveland County Schools, trying to figure out ways to resolve those problems and laying those resolutions out on the table for the School Board to consider a proper implementation. Note: Neither CCS School Board Chairman Robert Queen nor any other school board members made any attempt to advance any dialog with Rod Powell. Likely because they have passed rules that the School Board Members are not required to answer any questions during the Public Participation part of the school board meetings.
However, During the School Board Member Remarks at the end of this September 9, 2024 School Board Meeting, School Board Member Ronnie Grigg forcefully addressed his concerns regarding bullying going on at CCS. Reminding everybody that the recent mass shooter down in Georgia had allegedly been repeatedly bullied at school, and the same might happen at Cleveland County Schools. On Tuesday evening September 10, 2024, around 11:00 PM, a Hickory news station reported that Lincoln County, Cleveland County and another county’s Law Enforcement had received threats of potential school shootings in these counties and were taking action. WHAT action was not disclosed?
Later, Robert A reviewed CCS School Board Candidate Tracy Ross’s campaign Website and found that Ms. Ross fully understands that bullying is a major problem at Cleveland County Schools. Recognizing that there is a problem is always the first step in the never-ending battle at CCS for fixing problems.
This confirms Robert A’s previous conclusion to include Rod Powell and Tracy Ross, in conjunction with Kenneth A Ledford, David Fisher and Gloria Sherman as the best five candidates running for the CCS School Board in the 2024 Elections as shown at the end of this article. A marked-up sample ballot will soon be available for your voting convenience.
Also, folks, Stay Tuned for another article related to this September 9, 2024 CCS School Board meeting. The Cleveland County Schools Official Website directly links students ages 3 to 17 to LBTQXYZ indoctrination. This finding was published by the Foothills News Channel. Robert A is providing the link to the Foothills News Channel article as provided below. This is a must-read article that provides absolute truth and proof to rumors that have previously been denied by CCS.
Editor’s Note: Robert A recommends voting in the 2024 General Elections for the Commissioner and the CCS School Board Candidates as follows: (Please vote for ALL of the Candidates listed below on your ballot to provide the maximum Ballot Security!!)
Cleveland County Commissioners Candidate recommendations: Vote for these three!
XXXX Tony Berry
XXXX Stormy Mongiello
XXXX David Peace
Cleveland County School Board Candidate recommendations: Vote for these five!
XXXX Kenneth A. Ledford
XXXX David Fisher
XXXX Gloria Sherman
XXXX Rod Powell
XXXX Tracy Ross
