07/29/2022
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Sixteen years ago, when I bought my home on Town Mountain, I did a lot of research about this beautiful area. Among the results I learned that Clay County schools received excellent grades on the state report card and ranked among the top ten in a hundred plus districts. Sadly, in the last eight years or so the grades on that report card have fallen dramatically. Starting five years I began a listening tour among teachers, administrators, ex-teachers, ex-administrators, and more importantly parents. The ills of the Board of Education can be defined in several broad catagories: 1.) The abject failure of the school board to make improving teacher pay THE priority despite Clay County tying for the lowest paid teachers in the state). 2.) The practice of the school board to make important discussions and decisions in smoke-filled backrooms out of the glare of the voters, despite the sunshine laws of the state of North Carolina. 3.) The school board’s partisan failure to put the well-being of all students and parents first, by engaging in political dogma decisions. Children are not Republican or Democratic students, they are simply students. One of the most egregious actions showing this terrible tendency occurred when the board went against the recommendations of state and local health officials during the pandemic and even against the recommendation of the school superintendent. 4.) The school board wastes its time going down dogma inspired rabbit holes. 5.} The school board does not conduct its business as a business. Good-ole-boy cliques do not work spending the peoples' money. 6) The school board allowed the building of one of the least safe designs in the new primary schools. A courtyard or Pentagon design would have been much safer. 7. The schoolboard wastes a lot of money. There is a $26,000 volleyball net in the new Primary School.
Future posts will discuss these seven points in greater detail. Stay tuned!
