Teachers, others question WCPS spending priorities

One wants to purchase a storage tray for her classroom.

Another needs money to fill her color printer with ink.

A kindergarten teacher is trying to buy carpets to keep her students “off the hard floors.”

Others asked for items as simple as colored pencils, cardstock, and journals.

And several hope to raise enough funds to secure Scholastic news magazines they say will improve reading, social studies, and science scores.

While Wayne County Public Schools has, since July, spent more than $115,000 on “beautification” projects across 25 of its campuses — with tens of thousands of dollars more earmarked for similar initiatives — dozens of the district’s teachers, with fundraising goals ranging from just north of $100 to nearly $1,000, have taken to a crowdfunding website to solicit donations for items they consider essential for their students.

Some of them said they were disheartened by that fact — particularly after learning that the son of the Board of Education’s longest-tenured member, Chris West, had been awarded nearly $24,000 to complete landscaping work on five district campuses since the beginning of the school year.

“As ridiculous as it sounds, (donorschoose.org) is our only hope of getting the essentials without dipping into our own pockets,” a teacher, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said. “The fact that we are basically being forced to humble ourselves and raise money online for basic supplies while the son of a school board member is making pretty close to my annual salary doing landscaping work that, in a lot of cases, we can’t even tell was done is sickening. But that is the reality in WCPS. The kids always seem to come second. It’s no wonder we’re a failing district.”

Standing outside Spring Creek Elementary School Tuesday morning with a weedwhacker in her hand, former SCE PTA President Kathy Larson agreed.

She and more than a dozen other volunteers — including parents, alumni, and members of a Seymour Johnson Air Force Base squadron — were on campus to do what Spring Creek Elementary was supposed to accomplish with the more than $7,000 the school has already spent.

But instead of, like the school, spending thousands of dollars on metal benches Larson said “nobody is ever going to sit in,” spending hundreds of dollars buying plants that “are already dead,” and installing a $4,000 “reading patio” next to the school’s entrance Larson said, “nobody is ever going to use” — particularly given the fact that without a librarian, students have not been able to check out books thus far this year — they were spreading mulch, clipping weeds, and doing edging.

“This part, I have to say, it’s absolutely ridiculous that a parent is out here edging because the county doesn’t do it,” she said. “That’s their job. That’s what they get paid for.”

And it was particularly difficult to swallow upon learning, from a source who also shared the information with New Old North, that a WCPS Maintenance Department crew spent more than an hour Oct. 18 parked along a street in Handley Acres “playing on their cellphones.”

“They never even got out of the car,” the source, who took the timestamped photos that appear in this package said. “I sat there watching them, waiting for them to mow a lawn or something, but they were just playing on their phones.”

When asked the following day why one of their maintenance crews was in the neighborhood from 2:24 p.m. until more than an hour later, WCPS spokesman Ken Derksen said there was “no job being completed by the Maintenance Crew yesterday in Handley Acres.”

He also said that “in an effort to maximize their workday, a landscaping crew broke for lunch in the area between jobs” — noting that they crews are “automatically docked 30 minutes for lunch.”

But based on the timestamp from the images taken, the crew, if it was, indeed, stopping for lunch to “maximize their workday,” took more than twice the given lunch break.

Derksen’s response?

Asking for the source of the photographs to contact Assistant Superintendent Dr. Tim Harrell.

“The WCPS administration takes its fiscal responsibilities as a publicly funded organization very seriously. If the person who provided you with the photo has any information that would suggest this was something beyond what could be considered a reasonable lunch break, please have them contact Dr. Harrell,” Derksen said. “WCPS would welcome the opportunity to speak with him/her directly to ensure this matter is fully investigated.”

Staff members at several district schools have questioned the district’s priorities in the aftermath of the publication of the beautification expenditure list.

There were the three Northwest Elementary School teachers who bemoaned the fact that a wheelchair-bound student did not have an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant ramp so she could independently navigate campus.

“So, just to be clear, we can’t come up with the time or money for a very necessary ramp, but we can spend $7,500 on landscaping projects? And one of the people doing that work is in the same Maintenance Department that refused to replace the ramp?” one of them, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said. “This is absolutely outrageous. This is the kind of stuff that makes me want to be done with Wayne County Public Schools.”

And for several teachers at Goldsboro High School who were forced to endure 100-plus-degree heat indexes in their classrooms in August with no air conditioning — some purchasing their own fans — the decision-making inside WCPS’ Central Office is “bizarre.”

“First, they called us liars and said we all had AC. Then, they backtracked and admitted we didn’t have AC and went and spent all this money on some plants and mulch,” a GHS teacher told New Old North. “But I would bet you money that if any of these school board members actually had children in this district, they would never send their own kids into the conditions our students were dealing with.”

Larson, for her part, seemed more confused than anything.

This week, she said, the Spring Creek PTA is holding a fundraiser to try to net $10,000 for a new slide for the campus playground.

“The slide, it broke one day, and they just threw it away and didn’t replace it. So, we’re raising money to do that and (the money spent on the patio and benches) would have paid for half the slide,” she said. “They had $7,500 and we’re busting our butts to raise 10 grand. It’s just like, ‘This doesn’t make any sense.’”

Not the “tiny little patio” that cost nearly $4,000.

“I had to ask the teachers. Two of the teachers didn’t even know they had a new patio. They walk past it every day. It’s crazy. I don’t even understand the purpose of it,” Larson said. “Who’s going to sit there and read? Nobody. And you know why they’re not going to sit there and read? Because we don’t have a librarian. The kids can’t even check books out of the library.”

Not the benches.

“The benches don’t make any sense at all. I mean, nobody is ever going to sit in them. This is our car-rider line, where they bring kids out. But nobody sits out here. They just bring the kids out. They don’t sit down. They sit in that hallway right there,” Larson said. “I said, ‘Can we at least bring these benches inside where the kids actually sit so they’re not sitting on the floor?’”

And certainly not the plants — most of which have already been neglected to the point of no return.

“Five hundred bucks for those little plants that are already dead? Nobody asked. Nobody asked, ‘What would be the best use of this money,’” Larson said. “Why wouldn’t you ask us? We’re a very involved PTA. Look at all these volunteers that showed up at 9 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. Why would they not ask us to help? Or the teachers. The teachers are the ones who are directly impacting the students. They are the ones who know what the students need.”

Several attempts to sit down with WCPS Superintendent Dr. Marc Whichard were unsuccessful as he told New Old North he did not “see a need for a formal interview at this time.”

Had he agreed to answer questions, he would have been asked, among other things, about the district’s funding priorities.

Share on Facebook

Tweet

Follow us