Comments for Beaufort County is headed for a trainwreck in school planning | Eastern North Carolina Now
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JS - thanks for saying that part out loud. Far right conservatives hate public schools because they offer opportunity to everyone. For them, life has never been the same.
Commented: Monday, July 8th, 2024 @ 12:21 pm
By: Big Bob
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The Public School System is a joke the same as the people running it.
Really, Public Schools have always been part of the Communist system. They, even when you were in school, pushed a Communist agenda.....you just didn't know or see it. Many, even in this County, don't have a clue as to what is very possibly going on behind the scenes. Even when you tell them that there's no difference between Communism and Christian Zionism, they don't even know what the hell "Christian Zionism" is.....and these people have been in office forever!!! Personally, I think everybody's playing for the same end game. Oh yeah, the camera system at WHS has been disabled for five years. I have my connections too. Whoever's writing the script y'all are going by needs to start checking over themselves. This whole ordeal is going straight to the sh**house if people don't start doing their own research. You can't trust anybody.. especially a politician.
Commented: Saturday, July 6th, 2024 @ 4:58 pm
By: John Valley
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You should. Ask your self: What is the life span of the 50 million dollar school? 20 years? 50 years?
Better find some high ground.
Commented: Saturday, July 6th, 2024 @ 6:13 pm
By: Big Bob
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The Industrial Park would not be a good location for a new school, but elsewhere west of washington would be a great location. The slipslod and non-transparent planning process is the biggest problem with the way this has been handled. With a transparent planning process, the public would have a voice in site selection, but regretably this superintendant and his school board allies don't seem to value transpaerncy or public input.
Commented: Saturday, July 6th, 2024 @ 7:27 pm
By: John Steed
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Mr. Valley, be aware that the most useless controversy is where to site a school. I have no opinions on this.
However, the most important issue is the long term future of education in Beaufort County. Consider that the policy to date is a dismal failure. Consolidated schools are not the answer. Consolidated schools fit the communist plan for indoctrination and control of our people.
Commented: Saturday, July 6th, 2024 @ 8:02 am
By: Hood Richardson
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I've got to be honest; I'm highly concerned with the fact that Uncle Hood is seeding the idea of putting a community school in or around the industrial Park area.
If I were him, I'd rethink throwing that strategy out there. The White folks and the Black folks of that area are smelling some shenaniganry afoot and they don't like it, I can assure you. There's plenty of land elsewhere and money for serious renovation....they just don't want to give it up FOR those reasons. Dr. Blinson has always been a voice of reason. The man has the patience of Job lol. He's liked by the Conservatives of all backgrounds
Commented: Friday, July 5th, 2024 @ 6:58 pm
By: John Valley
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My takeaway from this is I prefer a more systematic approach to decision making like Dr. Blinson has laid out here. I acknowledge that way of planning is a rarity these days.
As has happened several times since I've been interacting on this site, the discussion of whatever issue being dealt with has been overridden by what seems to be a very bitter personal battle where reason and logic is nowhere to be found. On a previous discussion I found it necessary to do some personal research in order to have some idea what was being argued - in that case it was the legality or illegality of banning ex-officio members from the Repub executive committee. I've had to do personal research again about the animosity going on in this strand. This keeps going back to the present-day BC Repub executive committee and the hatred they have for the Beaufort County Conservative Club. It seems that the current officers of the Repub Executive Committee are relative newcomers to the area - a little over or a little under a decade or so in most cases. The roots of the Conservative Club go back several decades to a time where they started as the Beaufort County Republican Men's Club. There was a time when both groups worked in the Republican Party albeit with some tensions. In recent years the newcomers decided that the conservatives had to be outright banned from the party, so we now in effect have two hostile Republican groups: The official Republicans who operate under a sort of loose association with official Republican stated principles and the Conservatives with a more serious adherence to stated Republican principles. It seems the executive committee folks view the conservatives as demons or worse while the conservatives are wondering just who these new folks are that want to dictate who they can associate with and what they can think and say. The Republican Executive Committee meets monthly on the second Thursday at 6:30 pm at the Republican HQs. The Conservative Club meets on the third Thursday at 6 pm in the King Chicken meeting room. I'm thinking about checking both out, but a little voice in my head keeps insisting that may a very bad idea! Oh well, there's still the bunker. 
Commented: Monday, July 1st, 2024 @ 7:25 pm
By: Van Zant
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County voter, I do not use Google as my search engine because it is anti-privacy and pro-censorship and is biased in its search results. It may be fine if you are a big liberal who does not mind them selling your data, but not for anyone else.
Searching honest search engines, the only "Winterville Elemenrary School" I find is in Winterville, Georgia. Do you mean Creekside Elementary School in Winterville, NC? It is a K-5 school, not K-3 like Cheeeseman's school, covering a larger range of grades than Cheeseman's and it has a bit over 600 students, a lot less than Cheeseman's school for 1,000. www.niche.com
Commented: Monday, July 1st, 2024 @ 9:28 am
By: Concerned Taxpayer
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It looks like there is a little group that hates Hood Richardson so much that they are in Cheeseman's hip pocket. Don't confuse them with facts because their little minds are already made up.
Commented: Monday, July 1st, 2024 @ 8:28 am
By: Bubba
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I've learned right much the last year or so about the crazy local politics around here. I get that Big Bob represents the far-left Dems. At the same time, I'm getting this vibe that the Bp, Pretending girl, Cv, and Firebrander characters are what passes for main-stream Repubs in these parts. Bam damn shazam. I think I prefer Dem Big Bob. Kind of makes me want to hunker down in the bunker and wait for the zombies. Heck with politics. This is
Commented: Monday, July 1st, 2024 @ 8:07 am
By: Van Zant
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Credentials and knowledge matter. Dr. Blinson's background shows he has it. On the other side running this circus is a gang of three, two of them complete know-nothings on school construction, and one with a personal agenda of resume building and only limited knowledge of what he is doing.
On the county commission, while some people have knee jerk opinions of people because they don't like them politically, one again has to look at credentials. As an engineer, Richardson has been involved with many substantial building projects and knows all the professional and technical aspects. Frankie Waters knows little to nothing about construction and has questionable business ability. After all, the old Tri-County Telephone went under during his stint as its chairman and had to be sold to an outside company to keep it from going bust. Waters is the perfect know nothing for Cheeseman to control. We need to look at credentials, not who we like or don't like politically.
Commented: Monday, July 1st, 2024 @ 7:08 am
By: Rino Hunter
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Bath Parent: Is lying thus stupidity your stock in trade?
When I know someone is a liar and stupid, it always colors my perception of their every ignorant word uttered. If you slander me, or knowingly someone else on this platform again, I will cut you off as I do all lying fools, who generally makes little sense because of that whole lack of knowledge thing, which does appear to be your first nature. This Just In: The Slanderer Bath Parent and County voter appear to be the same fake entity, with slightly different emails that are also ... Surprise! ... Surprise! ... Fake ... So, I will intuitively check this character, from here on out, far more closely, and will stop all future slanderous ignorance, with or without fake emails, which is absolutely against our long standing policy on both counts - the Slander, Lying thing, and the Too Fake thing.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 9:49 pm
By: Stan Deatherage
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CT-how are you going to pay for it?
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 4:54 pm
By: Big Bob
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Concerned taxpayer a simple google search as your friend Donald would say winterville is larger, and many more. You sound like Biden this week deranged and stupid!! Just remember you are a Hood puppet.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 5:55 pm
By: County voter
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Concerned taxpayer (ray) keep given your 3 guys talking points as I have seen you give them in meetings as I sit in audience. Just remember you are only there to video something that is being streamed. The meaning of stupid is to continue to do something that is incorrect. Y’all must be reading Joe Biden book on how to act like a crazy person because yall are. Acting like you have no answers then acting like you are saving when Stan doesn’t even pay property taxes. Just think there is a county policy against employees not paying taxes and he is an employee of the citizens. Y’all explain that as you sit in bed with the 2
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 7:52 pm
By: Bath parent
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I agree. Dr. Blinson's experience and credentials carry more weight on this issue than anyone I know.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 9:34 pm
By: Van Zant
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Read Dr. Blinson's background at the end of his article. He has more credentials in school planning than Cheeseman, his staff, and the school board all put together. He is more knowledgable about facility planning than the whole lot of them. He is a long time and high ranking professional educator, not a politician or political gadfly. Beaufort County should listen to him.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 7:48 pm
By: borderhawk
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Public schools are facing more competition. Building a monster sized school to warehouse children with likely worse outcomes is just going to make Beaufort County Schools less appealing and less competitive. Competition currently exists with surrounding county systems and with private and charter schools. Pamlico County is pulling lots of students from Beaufort County, but there are few students Beaufort County pulls from neighboring counties. When a student goes to school in a neighboring county, the state funding, thousands of dollars follows him or her.
Similarly, with the expansion of state Opportunity Scholarships, many parents will now have the ability to send their kids to private schools, and every time they do, that is more state funding per pupil that Beaufort County Schools loses. Would parents rather send their kids to be warehoused in Cheeseman's monster sized school or to a private school of managable size like Terra Ceia? The Cheeseman plan will drive students away from Beaufort County Schools and certaily not attract any newe ones. From my understanding, population projections are for Beaufort County's growth to be west of Washington toward the Pitt County line. A new school of managable size there would attract students from Pitt County to make up for those lost, with their state funding, to Pamlico County. But none of this matters to Cheeseman. He wants that huge elementary school on his resume. Even if Cheeseman insists on a huge school, eastern Washington is a really stupid place to build it. The lack of study and planning is glaring.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 4:24 pm
By: Concerned Taxpayer
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My take on the new school.
The goal - to provide high quality educational experience for all students. HR is right. Small schools tend to produce better outcomes. There is a lot of data to supper that portion. The downside? It's more expensive. Republicans love tax cuts, but schools cost money and a lot of small schools cost more money. If HR wants small schools, he needs to talk about where the money comes from. If the idea is to cheap out by sending the POC to small substandard schools, HR needs to remember it's 2024, not 1955. Cheese-man has a point. The larger school, can if done right, provide a high quality educational experience for all at a better price point. But doing it right is difficult and there is a lot of data to suggest outcomes in large schools tend to be, disappointing. As I see it voters have a choice, pony up the the funds or go with the larger school.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 3:21 pm
By: Big Bob
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The school board, or at least its majority faction, IS the problem. They are feckless seat warmers who are sock puppets for a control freak superintendant. Mack Hodges, T.W. Allen, and Eltha Booth all need to go. If they had properly done their homework on long range school facility planning, we would not be stuck with this half-baked Cheeseman plan for a mega-school, which would be the largest K-3 elementary school in the state.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 2:25 pm
By: Concerned Taxpayer
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"ESSER funds"???? Someone with that detailed minutia sounds like a central office school employee, not a parent. Regardlesss of where public funds come from, they should not be flagrantly wasted. If the school was going to get torn down, shouldn't those funds have been spent somewhere else? Or was the plan for Eastern Elementary thrown together more recently than that? Either way, it illustrates the need for long range school facility planning that the current superintendant and current school board majority seem incapable of.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 1:07 pm
By: John Steed
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When was the last time any of you entered any of the schools? Hood has run out of comments so he has to go after school board members. He wants to control what is going on like he does with his three minions. New schools will bring new businesses which will bring new families to spend money which will improve the economy of Beaufort County. We know Hood doesn’t want Beaufort County to succeed. He has made that comment numerous times. The residents of Beaufort County are not a hobby or for Hood’s entertainment. If ever there was a time for him to lose an election this is it. Your rocking chair is waiting Hood.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 10:45 am
By: Prendiegirl
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I love you brought up the HVAC needs Hood. As I remember the School system spent ESSER funding to upgrade HAVC needs in the county at a savings to the local level Beaufort County budget. Talk about facts. Again Buzz open a school in the building outside of Washington and not charge kids to go if you would like to educate kids better.
Commented: Sunday, June 30th, 2024 @ 12:20 pm
By: Bath parent
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Just keep throwing money around maybe another 50 mil and we can get students actually reading at grade level.
Also I never heard of a building plan being funded before any building plan was actually established. Spot on statement was made about there being more planning to get the money than planning the actual project.
Commented: Saturday, June 29th, 2024 @ 8:15 pm
By: Will Simmons
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I see very little news about this in other publications. My feeling is that the general public is not aware of this debacle. I checked with WITN but no reply. This failed system started in the late 80s when school consolidation was the coming thing. We have proven that to be a failure. Why are we continuing with this failed system? Change the method. Change the results.
Commented: Friday, June 28th, 2024 @ 12:47 pm
By: Buzz Cayton
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Let me play devil's advocate here. The devil's position I will present is that of the climate alarmists. The climate alarmists want fewer emmissions. A series of smaller neighborhood schools closer to peoples homes mean parents do not drive as far, and therefore fewer emissions. Also the school bus routes are shorter, with the same result. The school drup off lines in the morning and pick up lines in the afternoon are shorter with less wait time with the car idling, with again fewer emmisions. I think the climate alarmists would tell you that neighborhood schools are, to use their favored phrase "better for the planet". I can just imagine the long lines of parents at Cheeseman's mega-school with long waiting times and cars with engines running, waiting. I am not a climate alarmist, but I think it is clear what their perspective would be.
Commented: Friday, June 28th, 2024 @ 1:53 pm
By: Conservative Voter
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The board of County Commissioners are equally as guilty as the School Board. The money passed thru the Commissioners to the School board. We are oversight whether admitted or not. Then there is the ethical thing with wives and the school board and husbands on the commissioners board.
Commented: Friday, June 28th, 2024 @ 8:08 am
By: Hood Richardson
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If the idea was consolidation of GRADE LEVELS, it is better to change to 3 or 4 of the traditional K-6 elementary schools as neighborshood schools, with a new school west of Washington nearer the Pitt County line and renovations to other facilities. That would create the neighborhood schools we need, consolidate grade levels without monster schools, and update our school facilities. It would also save the public money that could be used for other, more pressing school needs like needed renovations at Chocowinity Elementary.
Putting a brand spanking new school close to the Pitt County line could also snag students away from Pitt County Schools, with state funding following those students who move. Pamlico County Schools have been snagging students and their state funding from Beaufort County for years. With a properly located new school, we could be doing the same to Pitt County. Beaufort County Schools problem is that they have a superintendant who is a control freak and this school project has been largely a one man show, and from an individual lacking the skill set to do what he is trying to do. It is pathetic that our school board majority is so weak and controllable. We do badly need some major changes there. We do not need a tail that wags the dog which is what we have now.
Commented: Friday, June 28th, 2024 @ 8:12 am
By: Concerned Taxpayer
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We may be stuck in some ways with an incompetent plan, but there is a need to improve it as much as is feasible, because it is clearly thrown together without much thought or study. On a longer term, however, we need a school board that are active participants in school policy and planning, not rubber stamps for whatever the superintendant decrees, which is mostly what we have now. This fiasco represents incredibly poor planning on the school board's part, and that is something that badly needs to change going forward. We have too many figureheads on the school board and too few real community leaders.
Commented: Friday, June 28th, 2024 @ 7:08 am
By: John Steed
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Isn't that water over the dam at this point? When the Commissioners and School Board voted to accept the money the state superintendent said it was mainly awarded due to the plan on consolidating grade levels in the attendance area.
Commented: Thursday, June 27th, 2024 @ 9:07 pm
By: Jack Maggio
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Coming to a 15 minute city near you..
Commented: Thursday, June 27th, 2024 @ 12:51 pm
By: John Valley
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Great post, Mr. Blinson. All of the things you mention are things a competent school board would have considered and gotten to the bottom of, but the majority on this Beaufort County School Board just follows whereever their superintendant tells them to go, without looking at the options. We got a few good ones in two years ago, but we need to send up some more thinking members this year to replace the dead wood we have.
Commented: Thursday, June 27th, 2024 @ 11:35 am
By: Rino Hunter
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Superintendant Cheeseman does not care about what is good for education in Beaufort County, just about what looks good on his resume to get a higher paying and more prestigious job in a bigger system. Unfortunately, the majority of our school board are little more than seat warmers who do not really engage on school policy but instead just rubberstamp whatever Cheeseman tells them to do. Mack Hodges, T.W. Allen, and Eltha Booth are particularly pathetic examples of this. We need a school board that engages on policy, not the weak fools we have warming so many of those seats now.
Commented: Thursday, June 27th, 2024 @ 8:56 am
By: John Steed
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