So, when are you going to go and fight for your public schools?
When are you going to call out those people in the North Carolina General assembly who continue to bow down to private interests at the expense of our most vital social services like public education?
Remember September of 2018? That’s when a video came to light concerning a May 2018 in which then superintendent Dr. Beverly Emory presented the school system budget request to the county Board of Commissioners and the issue of teacher supplements was brought up.
That original nine-minute video can be seen here:
In September of 2018, the Winston-Salem Journal ran a report about that video along with news of a video response by the superintendent to try and explain what actually may have happened.
After a video of a meeting between Superintendent Beverly Emory and the Forsyth County commissioners circulated on social media over the weekend, several educators expressed concern that the school district isn’t being aggressive enough in asking for more money for teachers supplements.
The video, running a little more than nine minutes, features comments from commissioners Everette Witherspoon and Don Martin, himself a former Forsyth superintendent.“I hope that the school board actually asks for more money to deal with the teacher-supplement issue because we are behind,” Witherspoon says in the video.“We’re not going to be asking you about it; you need to do the asking of us with a proposal or an idea or whatever,” Martin says.
And I distinctly remembering that I felt our school board at the time and the school systems leaders did not do one crucial thing for our school system: fight for it.
Fast forward a little over three years later in January of 2022, after two more superintendents, a global pandemic, an extended budget approval process by the state, more gerrymandered districts, and more unfounded attacks on the teaching profession and we in our district received news that local supplements would increase significantly.
And then this:
That specific report in the Winston-Salem Journal stated,
Superintendent Tricia McManus said in a message to the district’s certified staff on Thursday night said that because of the calculation error, the amount the school board had approved was roughly $16 million dollars more than what had been budgeted for local increases.
That message was a gut punch. That 16 million dollar mistake affected a lot of lives. Teachers had every right to be angry. Actually, the school system and the county board had a right to be angry as well.
Don’t forget that we live in a state that ranks 48th in funding effort for its public schools in the nation. What the state has done to public schools these last 12 years here in North Carolina in the wake of the Great Recession has never been remedied.
And we continue to defund our public schools. Look at the LEANDRO decision. Look at tax cuts for corporations and the wealthy.
So, when a local school system finds itself in a situation where money is mismanaged it needs to find solutions and the FIGHT FOR THEM.
Because the problem was not just the mismanagement.
It was rooted in the environment this state (which boasts of its budget surpluses) puts on local school systems by not fully funding its public school system thus forcing LEAs to run on shoe-string budgets that get crippled with one mistake.
That lesson should have taught you to go FIGHT for more for our schools.
And now in March of 2025, we get this:
And if you want to watch the school board meeting in which that audit was discussed, you can here.
Go ahead and scroll to the 50th minute. That’s when the presentation starts board begins to ask questions. And listen to it for at least the next 60 minutes.
Upon reviewing that meeting after a few hours of sleep, the situation we as a school system find ourselves in seems even more daunting, but there are so many things that can be learned now and acted upon so as to not have them grow into insurmountable obstacles in the (near) future. It involves actively FIGHTING for our schools.
No matter how good our intentions are, mistakes will be made. However, instead of spending time trying to deflect the blame, we need to openly look for solutions. AND THEN FIGHT LIKE HELL FOR THEM.
Recent history with district finances and a willingness to identify what we can and cannot do should have already instructed us on how we could have avoided this situation. It should have also taught you as elected and appointed officials to fight for your public schools instead of being lulled into a state of complacency that people like Phil Berger want you to exist in.
When an elected official wins a seat on a school board or county commission, he/she should understand this is something that involves taking ultimate responsibility. In essence, you asked for it. In fact, you campaigned for it. You said you wanted to fight for us.
Now fight. For schools and students – not against teachers. Fight for communities not openly amongst yourselves.
If someone takes a leadership job within Central Office, then he/she should realize that he/she is not just working for the school system; they are working for the educators who spend the “face-to-face” time with students, parents, and community members. That job involves removing as many obstacles within their control as possible that could affect the classroom environment – not creating more. And fighting for us. FIGHTING for schools and students and communities on the local AND STATE level.
When a Central Office person tells a bunch of educators that they should “stand in your shoes” when you make over four times in salary what most teachers in this district make and have a definitive job description unlike classroom teachers who have to constantly navigate moving measurements. If anything, you are not fighting for schools.
You’re fighting against them.
