Did your voices really matter?

Before we get started, here’s a trigger warning: No, this is not going to be a kumbaya, hand-holding, let’s all just get along, time for positivity commentary. And here’s why:

Now we know — and judging from the volume of comments, emails and angry face emojis we are seeing, you know, too.

The majority of the Wayne County Board of Education really wasn’t going to listen to anyone’s opinions on what the district’s reopening plan should be.

All of that “tell us what you think,” “we are listening,” “your voices matter,” was just for show.

We know that because at least three of those same board members made it perfectly clear that they came to Monday’s special-called meeting with their decisions already made.

And … they added that more information “was not going to change their minds.”

One of them, board vice chairman Jennifer Strickland, even forced a vote — in spite of a request from one of her fellow board members to seek more opinions from health professionals, the interim superintendent, Central Office leadership team members and others to allow him to make a more informed decision.

And so, here we are again.

The board is right. They aren’t going to make everyone happy with any decision about a reopening plan. And it is a difficult call.

But that is not really the point — or why what happened Monday should make your hair stand on end.

Board Chairman Chris West did his best to camouflage the fact that the die had already been cast.

While he emphasized that a speedy decision was critical and tried to set a date for a vote next week, he honored Len Henderson’s respectful and reasonable request to bring in more experts to discuss some of his concerns.

But he also had a prepared statement defending the board’s action to go with Plan B right there in his handy, dandy board folder.

Fortuitous, huh?

But how he came to need it was even more fascinating.

You see, the board wasn’t supposed to vote on Monday. In fact, the interim superintendent recommended that they didn’t.

And the special-called meeting’s agenda included discussion of the reopening plan, not a vote.

But they fixed that with a specious agenda change that sparked a couple quiet discussions with their million-dollar attorney — after the vote.

Fancy that.

It was another shifty move by a board that is seemingly making contempt for Open Meetings Law its new thing. 

You see, North Carolina General Statute does not allow for a change to a special-called meeting agenda on the fly. 

They could probably swim around in the gray area and justify it legally this time because they at least mentioned the school reopening plan on their agenda. But the reason adding an action item is still not quite transparent is because when a board makes a change like that, it denies the public a chance to make its feelings known and to perhaps be present for such a momentous decision.

A technicality, you say?

Yes, maybe, except the district has made a big show of telling the community and its personnel that what they say matters, and that their voices are being acknowledged and are a factor in the decision process.  

But the truth is, it is hard to believe that voices other than those who called them personally, or who were in their Facebook groups, mattered at all.

They seemed not to notice when their $22,000-a-month interim superintendent began the meeting by telling them he was not going to recommend action Monday — adding an estimate that it would be late July or early August before the district had a firm grasp of what a Plan B reopening would look like, or whether WCPS staff would recommend that plan or remote learning.

They really did not take into account the results of the teachers’ survey. In fact, when Central Office staff acknowledged that they did not have drilled-down, school-specific numbers, some board members asked for the information, while others did not pause to think maybe they should slow down and get that detail first.

That is especially ironic since the district threw a bit of a hissy fit this past weekend when an assistant superintendent announced via an interview with a local reporter that the district would be going with Plan B.

In fact, WCPS’ response to that “preemptive” announcement was a quick assurance from the interim superintendent that the input the district asked for from teachers and the community was still rolling in and was a “critical” consideration in the decision-making process.

<Pause for effect.>   

Guess not.

Board members didn’t even catch the irony when that same assistant superintendent outlined Monday all the reasons why the Plan B startup was a challenge and all the questions she — and other members of the leadership team — still did not know the answers to.

Or this statement she made at the board meeting: “I would say this with sincerity but a lot of irony that if the governor is requiring every single person in a school building, K-12, teachers and staff to wear a mask, who are going to be socially distanced like we are right now in this room, then we can’t be in this room in this building without wearing a mask. Only, I know some people in this room can’t hear me if I’m wearing a mask. So, I just want you to keep in your mind, this is what a classroom looks like, but we’re all in a mask all day. That’s the requirement now. That concerns me.”

Tamara Berman-Ishee meant no disrespect. She was trying to illustrate the challenges teachers and students will face.

But the irony of her statement would not be obvious to anyone who was not in the meeting room that day.

You see, not all the board members were consistently wearing masks. In fact, most of them weren’t — including Wade Leatham, who announced at Monday’s meeting that he had been laid up for the last 30 days with, wait for it … COVID-19.

Many of the board members and some staff did not wear their masks while they were talking — or the whole time they were in the room, and that was only about three hours.

And don’t forget that the school board voted to keep extreme social distancing rules at their meetings — which means no one from the public can come into their board room and media have to sit in plexiglass boxes and stay behind a line.

Also ironic, don’t you think?

So, here’s the thing.

Had the board been upfront with the public and just admitted that Plan B is where WCPS was headed, none of these “we are listening” promises would be an issue.

Sure, there would still be questions and concerns from some parents, teachers and staff.

And it’s also true that there are many living in Wayne County who support face-to-face instruction and some who are worried about a return to school but acknowledge that there are emotional concerns about students continuing to be away from classrooms.

The problem is that the board gave Dr. James Merrill the baton and asked him to assemble his troops and make a recommendation that would best-serve the majority of the WCPS community.

He and his team could have addressed those concerns — and offered safe options within a few weeks.

But the board decided not to wait, offering to revisit the decision later, after more information came in (probably because their phones started to blow up during their 10-minute recess).

We know what they’ll say. 

“A decision had to be made. This is just a starting off point. We can still move to Plan C if survey results or Gov. Roy Cooper’s directive change things.”

But why wouldn’t we take the time to do this right the first time?

You might be able to toss out an order to put together a graduation plan on the fly without a thought because, after all, you’re not the ones doing the work.

But asking Merrill and his team to create a responsible reopening plan for thousands of children, teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers, custodians, etc. in less than a month is, as Berman-Ishee put it, a “hard ask.”

That’s why other counties in the region, including Wake, Wilson and Cumberland, have decided to begin with Plan C — not because it’s ideal and not because it’s what they want, but because they feel an imperative to get it right.

You don’t think those counties face the same challenges we do?

You don’t think their board members are getting phone calls, text messages and hostile Facebook posts or that they aren’t wrestling with the stresses either plan puts on parents and children?

Of course they are.

But the right decision, the proper course of action, the one recommended by their administrative teams, dictates that they make sure they begin slowly, invest the time to get it right.

So, here’s where all this leaves us.

You might have a beef with the staff at Central Office.

You might have a legitimate argument to make about their salaries and the guaranteed raises in their contracts and all that led to the district’s recent financial meltdown.

But in this situation, they tried to ensure WCPS got off on the right foot this fall.

We know they will do the best they can to make this happen. And even if they don’t think they can pull it off, they will try.

But we fear that nobody — not Berman-Ishee, Merrill or any other capable mind on Royall Avenue — can wave a magic wand and make Plan B work on Day 1.

Len Henderson didn’t seem too comfortable with voting. He was conflicted, and he said so. So did Pat Burden.

And even if they had ultimately voted “yes,” at least all the information would have been out there — the survey results, the number of students who will attend the Virtual Academy and the number of teachers who are reluctant to enter a school building because of COVID-19 fears. 

They would have known the bus routes and who was going to take staff and student temperatures every day.

They would have a plan for feeding the 2,100 and counting students who have opted out of face-to-face instruction ahead of the July 30 deadline.

And they would know how they were going to put Clorox wipes in every classroom — when the average Joe hasn’t been able to find them at local stores for months.

That is why Merrill wanted to wait until the end of July.

That is why Berman-Ishee raised the many questions she did.

And that is why the board should have waited — even though it would have meant more phone calls, text messages and posts on Facebook.

But don’t worry everybody.

You might be concerned about whether or not your children should go back to school because of the potential risks of COVID-19.

You might be worried about how your special needs child or kindergartener is going to wear a mask all day without passing out.

You might be wondering how you are going to do two days of remote learning and hold down a job.

And if you are a teacher, you might be trying to figure out how you are going to make sure you stay healthy — or what happens if you are exposed to COVID-19, forced into quarantine and what that will do to your family when, after your mandatory, paid two weeks at home, you’re only making two-thirds of your salary to stay away.

But Jennifer Strickland is going to be able to go out of town, and her children will be able to do hybrid learning because, after all, the remote learning offered by teachers in the spring was not good enough.

(She has since walked that statement back, by the way. Not a surprise really, since it made more than a few teachers a little bit upset.)

BUT WAIT, this just in. Strickland announced on Facebook after the meeting that she is now applying for some of her children to attend K12, which she characterized as “a free online public charter school.”

Drop the mic.

That’s right, the school board member who forced a Plan B vote, and who stated publicly that the WCPS remote-only option was not good enough for her children, is now implying that she is potentially moving some of them to a charter school — and encouraging other WCPS families to look into local charter and private school alternatives.

That last statement might seem ironic, especially if you were one of the 91 people who watched live streams of the board’s budget meetings. If you did, you will remember that Strickland has been vocal about something else — the detrimental effect charter schools have had on the public schools’ budget.

Surely, we read this wrong, but see for yourselves. Here is the screenshot.

By the way, we do not fault any parent who chooses to take advantage of a charter school. That is their right.

But for a sitting public school board member to encourage such an exodus, after she made a stink about decreasing ADM in a district she helped lead while it was tanking financially, is irresponsible at best and stunningly brazen at the worst.

She is the leadership — the board vice chairman no less — that has set the policies and made the decisions that have put us in this mess. Now, she is talking about pulling her children out of it — after forcing a decision on thousands of other WCPS parents. 

We think it is time for Strickland to go, sooner than later please. Perhaps the charter or private schools have seats available on their boards.

But we digress.

In the wake of the Plan B announcement, there has been a call to all join hands and get the job done.

We disagree.

Now is the time to stand firm, to express concerns and to really mean it when we say we are going to do what is best for our children and school personnel.

We acquiesced when they called for in-person graduations.

We even understood the difficulty of making a choice.

But now we should demand better.

Back to school can begin with Plan C, as the details of a safe, and effective, Plan B are worked out.

And let’s remember a few other things, too.

West and board member Ven Faulk met with the leader of the Wayne County Association of Educators. They told her teachers’ voices would be heard. They played the game, so to speak and she believed them.

We wonder how Tiffany Kilgore feels now.

And we also wonder about all those who argue children should go back to school because they need the social interaction. Have they even seen the checklist? 

Your child won’t be able to run alongside a friend, hug or have a conversation without a mask. They won’t be able to play sports or stand side by side in the chorus.

They won’t ever be within six feet of each other, assuming schools are following the rules.

They won’t be able to go sit with their friends in the cafeteria during lunch or next to them on the bus.

And there is no guarantee — Faulk validated this by the way — that your children will even be at school the same days as their friends.

We get it. COVID-19 is a dastardly virus that has disrupted our lives. 

We cannot — and let us repeat this for the people in the back, we cannot — stay inside forever.

And we cannot let fear consume our lives.

But we are not doing our children any favors by sending them into what we believe will be a chaotic Day 1 that could, as board members acknowledged, easily turn back into Plan C.

And we also must not ignore that this board just put itself in a great position, politically speaking.

If this fails — and we have no doubt after listening to Berman-Ishee that it will — board members can blame Central Office for the shortcomings. You know, the same people they blamed for the four-year general fund balance nosedive a few months ago.

If the call for Plan B leads to a mass exodus of teachers, remember that part of what this board blames its financial dumpster fire on is employing 100 more teachers than the state allotment. Teachers resigning — or retiring early to avoid the unknowns of returning to schools — would help greatly in WCPS’ effort to pay back the $5 million it owes the state and Food Service Fund and balance the 2020-21 budget.

And this can all be done without really having to answer any tough questions — you know, now that they are spinning every board decision into a press release written by one of the district’s employees, ignoring requests for interviews with district personnel, suddenly dragging their feet on public records requests they have a legal obligation to honor and writing their own “recaps” of board meetings without publishing the parts, like Berman-Ishee’s four-minute list of questions that “keep her up at night,” they don’t want you to hear.

After all, all of you are watching those multi-hour board meetings, right?

Don’t let them get away with it.

We certainly won’t.

And remember that your voices still matter to this community — and to the thousands of local residents who are done playing games. 

So, where do we go from here?

If you’re a teacher who is afraid to return to school next month, apply to teach at the Virtual Academy. If you are like the 2,100 parents who have already said remote learning is in the best interest of your child and family, click here and register your student for the state-mandated, remote-only option. 

And if you haven’t registered to vote, do it. Because from Goldsboro City Hall to the Wayne County Courthouse, we have seen what happens when outrage doesn’t spill over to the ballot box.

The future of Wayne County is too important to not use your voice.

And we will continue to use our platform to raise questions, to seek interviews and to request public documents to get the answers you need to know about those who seek to lead or who are leading your community. And we are prepared to fight for them, too.

We will keep combing through the mountains of documents we already have as we continue our search to determine how our school system went broke. And will make sure that our requests for public documents are not shelved or ignored, including taking legal steps to get them if we must.

And soon, we will share a conversation we had with a recently retired district employee who has a whole lot to say that you’re going to want to hear.

Trust us, you won’t want to miss a minute of it, because this information certainly won’t be appearing in any WCPS-prepared “news” release.

Keep sharing your thoughts, even if you disagree with us. This is your fight, too. Remember, we are in this together — and our goal is a better community.

And because we have heard it — and we have read it — know this. New Old North is not editorially liberal. It is not blindly conservative either. You would be surprised about the discussions we have amongst ourselves. And that is the point, really. What is missing in this country is people with different viewpoints sharing their thoughts and listening to one another. We started this site to lead discussions and to hold leadership accountable — Republican, Democrat or Independent — and that is what we will continue to do. We have some very interesting thoughts about political discourse and the media today. Look for those comments in the future. But at the heart of what we do is making this community a better place. We love it, respect it and have high hopes for its future. We know that you do, too. Sunlight makes everything better. Now is our time to demand it.