School board takes an epic roadtrip

Want to know what happens when there is no one holding a school board to account and a puppet chairman is being fooled into believing he is in charge while he and a self-important, wanna-be power broker get their egos stroked by a Raleigh-based attorney who was hired without a bid process and got a very lucrative contract?

Yes, we know that is a mouthful.

Two words: Ocracoke Island.

That’s right, your school board — you know, the same one that has been pleading poverty for the last few years as it tried to work its way out of a massive deficit caused, in part, by excessive spending on poor hiring decisions, consultants and legal fees — just completed a three-day retreat more than five hours away from Wayne County.

The agenda included some important topics — career and technical education offerings, teacher recruitment/training cadet program, vocational education, mission/vision statement, five-year strategic plan, a legal workshop, and facility utilization/attendance line review.

Wait, what?

For those who cannot read between the lines, the county school board held a retreat to discuss at least one subject that sounds awfully suspiciously like consolidation of schools.

And they did it so far away that there was little chance anyone was going to be there to hear it.

So, we asked about it — why in the world would a local school board constantly harping about its budget situation and warning teachers that there just isn’t money for extras decide to go to the beach?

Well, board chairman Wade Leatham told us — in a Q and A that you will see right here.

But for now, let’s talk about some of the highlights.

The board, Leatham said, needed a place away from their daily distractions and where there “were no televisions” to be able to bond and to focus on the task of figuring out a strategic plan for the next five years.

Are you laughing? Is your mouth hanging open in shock?

Oh, it gets better.

The board went to Ocracoke because the district got a deal — a great spot at a reasonable price of about $2,000, Leatham said.

Hmm. Want to know where else is a great spot? The Maxwell Center. Want to know where there is a great place to go to dinner or have it catered in? One of the many restaurants in Wayne County.

Want to know why the board should have considered it? Because the businesses and taxpayers in this community might have liked to see their dollars spent at home, not supporting a beach economy.

There’s more to shake your head at — we will leave you to find the hidden gems.

But the bottom line is your board of education headed to a beach vacation masked as a legitimately explainable visit to an institute for the “advancement of teaching” to discuss the five-year plan for your schools hundreds of miles away from you.

By the way, that “institute” in Ocracoke — as well as its mountain counterpart — are paid for by your tax dollars. Ask local teachers how many of them have ever been there.

Spoiler alert: Many, if not most, won’t even know what you’re talking about.

This board retreat was billed as a public meeting, so you were invited — but were you really?

Anyone have a spare $1,000 to $1,500 to cover gas, food and lodging for the trip? (And that is being conservative.)

The district’s teachers sure didn’t. They were too busy putting Amazon wish lists up to collect enough school supplies to start the year.

Or buying fans to cool their classrooms at Goldsboro High School.

How revolting. How scary. And how revealing.

We have been wondering for a while what happened to the fiscally-conservative candidate Chris West who piously said more than a decade ago that he was running to correct the financial irresponsibility of the then-Democrat-led school board.

Accountability is what he preached then.

How funny — in the “ironical,” yet-not surprising, way — that he is a past chairman of a board that has been presented with evidence in abundance of the district’s overspending on legal services and yet has been the biggest proponent of continuing the association with the attorney responsible for it.

And what about the other fiscal conservatives on the board, specifically your aforementioned board chairman, Leatham.

You might not know this, but earlier this year, when presented with the information that board attorney Richard Schwartz was increasing his charge to the district — remember that his annual bills have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars and one year included $80,000 in charges for answering board member/staff phone calls — Leatham shrugged away the question.

“I mean, everybody’s got inflation and increased costs these days,” he said.

What?

We were stunned.

We think you, struggling to make ends meet, to fill your gas tank and to keep your family fed and clothed, might have something to say about that, too.

But then again, why should they have to answer for any of these decisions?

After all, they are the chosen ones who really have the smarts, the insight, and the best interest of the schools in mind.

You are just the parents and businessowners — and taxpayers.

Ugh.

And there it is, the real cost of the pandemic and the ensuing bitter battles that have divided and silenced this community for the last few years. Isolation and closures, masks and social distancing, and the political bickering and finger-pointing weakened us and hurt our children.

Those who used to pay attention to what was going on had other concerns.

And meetings that were already sparsely attended became ghost towns.

And then there is the increasingly invisible and ineffectual media.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

And not voting and “tuning out” results in ineffectual leadership — and people who have no business being in charge and who cannot do the job getting re-elected or resigned to four-year contracts in the face of demonstrable failure.

While we have been trying to recover, trying to get back to normal, and maybe mending some of the fences that have been destroyed — and trying to stay out of the cancel-culture’s sights — there has been an outbreak of people who have taken over, and who believe their own press about how valuable they are.

Oh, they have plenty to say, and remind anyone who gets in their way what power they wield.

And no one, we repeat, no one, can watch every little thing they do to see what the latest surprise is.

And they know it.

This is not a new phenomenon. Look around you and you will see it everywhere.

Nepotism is one of the first signs. And self-important preening is another. And so is choosing to speak in secret rather than listening to the people you are serving. That is a dead give-away.

And while we were building back our community, they were sucking up power.

There’s a reason for the steady exodus Wayne County Public Schools has seen in recent years.

Parents who are not happy with how their public schools are being run, the education their children receive, and education leadership that has been focused on looking the other way are taking their youngsters out and sending them elsewhere.

Wayne STEM Academy is just the latest of a long list of places to which WCPS is losing enrollment.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, means lost money. Somewhere in the $15 to $20 million ballpark. Every single year.

Why the decline?

Here are a few reasons: Bureaucracy, lack of student accountability, lack of respect for parents’ input in their child’s education, mediocrity that gets rewarded with a cushy job in the Central Office because of connections and Greek letters, an agenda that is less about the basic building blocks of learning and more about some kind of social crusade, and rule-makers who have been away from the classroom for so long they have no idea what it is really like to stand in front of a room full of today’s students.

Education is failing because no one — or almost no one — is brave enough to tell the truth.

And those who could speak, who desperately want to share what they know needs to be done to better serve students, they are afraid.

Speaking out against a machine is never easy.

It defends itself with character assassination and job loss.

Sounds hopeless, right?

Far from it.

When we make strong statements like this, we are often criticized.

“All you do is run down the schools,” we hear. “You are all about the criticism, but pretty short on solutions.”

Here is a solution and a warning — one we all should heed.

Stop being afraid to speak up and to demand better.

Pay attention to your elected officials and their board meetings. Get involved.

There is a new superintendent. Hold him accountable and listen to what he has to say about your schools and the future. And don’t let good-old-boy politics make the decision about the job he is doing.

Understand that the isolation and division that have kept us silent for more than a couple years are also why real problems have not been addressed.

And when we stand together, when we care together, we find like-minded people willing to stand with us.

There are parents, grandparents, and neighbors all across this county who feel the same way you do. They are Hispanic, white, black, rich, poor, natives, and newcomers, and all of them are trying to do the best for their families.

And if you are waiting for a sign, a signal that this is finally the tipping point, here it is.

Think whom you put in place doesn’t really matter?

The board that just went to Ocracoke to create yet another “mission statement” is the same one that rehired an expensive attorney who just so happens to serve on the board of directors for the fundraising arm of the organization that operates out of that Ocracoke retreat.

No conflict of interest there.

How about that?