Don’t believe a word of this article until you watch the Video of the April 9, 2018 School Board Meeting on the CCS website.. See for yourself who is lying and who is not.
First of all the meeting starts with a Pledge of Allegiance and a moment of silence. After all the hub-ub a few years ago to bring Prayer back into schools, the Ministers in Cleveland County have surrendered, again, to the powers of darkness. Shame on them.
There were some initial discussion of a $137,000 counseling and retest program to help students at the end of the third grade learn to read. I wondered why three grades were wasted before anything was done to mitigate this problem. Knowing that about 46% of CCS seniors graduate without being able to read proficiently Or sign their name on a pay check. Or be able to count to 100.
The biggest discussion of the evening was regarding $170,000 worth of roof repairs. Board member Danny Blanton brought out that Cleveland County Schools had just spent $9 million a few years ago to renovate the Central Services Building and have been hit time after time with large repair bills such as this $170,000 for roof repair. It was brought out that there was a large construction effort on the roof for air conditioning equipment and the thought was to wait until that work was done to tackle the roof repair. It appeared to be the air conditioning work was also one of those high dollar items done after the renovation that Blanton was talking about. Blanton wondered when the Central Services building would be through with all these high expense items so more money could go to the schools used to educate students. And auditoriums (a 2017 Election year campaign promise now long forgotten by Board Member Phillip “Bully” Glover) for Burns and Crest. No other Board Member spoke a word and the $170,000 was approved.
The biggest item of the evening was the $155 million total CCS total budget. A little was said by the budget presenter regarding the revenue stream. Nobody mentioned the fact that once the system merged and the old County School tax rate was applied that the County, which had before merger provided a separate revenue stream, was regularly lowering the amount it provided in the previous non-school tax revenue stream.
No detailed discussions were held regarding the county’s schools failure to provide adequately trained workers for the workforce we allegedly have in Cleveland County.
No discussion on school safety either despite a well known deficiency in school modifications to improve student safety that were not considered in the 2018-2019 budget.
The shortest school board meeting in memory was then adjourned without further ado.
