Heartburn at the Beaufort County School Board | Eastern North Carolina Now

By:  Hood Richardson

Until the past couple of years school board meetings anywhere in the United States were dull, unexciting events attended by people who led dull unexciting lives with little prospect of stepping into any limelight.  That changed as the general public became aware that graduates of our education system did not have the intellectual skills to be successful at anything.   Employers complained about young people who did not have the skills to do math, could not spell, could not solve simple problems, and many could not sign their names.  Recent graduates seemed to be waiting on someone to direct them in every situation.

Initial consultations with educators brought back reports of what a fantastic education they were giving our children.  After the first wave of educator self assessment passed over, the public realized that something was seriously wrong.  It was about this time that students were being exposed to heavy emphasis on sex, beginning in the grammar schools.  Suddenly boys were allowed to use girls’ bathrooms and to declare themselves to be feminine and demand feminine rights.  Schools deliberately confused young students about sexual orientation and pronouns.  The teaching of a strange new history began evolving.  Schools began teaching that the United States of America had been founded and built entirely by the black race.  White people had been lying for almost 250 years.

After the wave of black superiority, we were introduced to social justice.  Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  Race again.  It seems that all past racial injustices should be compensated by awarding anyone other than white people positions of high authority, money and social position.  The Government should compensate anyone other than white people with at least one million dollars for whatever social sins may have been applied to their ancestors.

This will come as a shock to everyone who had those recent high school history classes:  Every group throughout history has been oppressed by some other group.  I want the Italian Government to pay me for the Roman occupation of the British Isles.  If everyone else is due restitution, so am I.  

All of this propaganda came from the leftists, socialists, communists, and those who pushed the anti-American way of destroying the United States.  They want dictatorial control.  Most of these people picture themselves as knowing what is good for us and therefore, they will fit somewhere into the new world order dictator class.  No one wants to destroy our form of government unless they intend to play a decision making role in the new government.  Maybe they will be a block captain and tell their neighbors what to do.  Most intend to be the “big brother” who is watching---and reporting.

A lot of people woke up when they realized our children were “not” being educated. Some of the things not being taught: cursive writing, memorizing multiplication tables, historically logical mathematics, true history, ethics, civics, the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and effective behavior patterns.  There is a dearth of effective discipline enforced in many of our schools. That is the main reason we now have to have armed police officers in the school, home schooling and the growth private schools.

Some of us started fighting back.  The Conservative Club formed a Curriculum Committee to gather information and develop solutions. Initially we were told we have no rights around the school boards.  Police were brought in at many school board meetings across the United States .  It happened here in Beaufort County. Superintendent Cheeseman had as many as 8 officers at a school board meeting that I attended.  They were there to intimidate anyone who wanted to disagree with him or the school board.  We ignored them and pressed on.   We ran new conservative candidates during the 2022 elections.  We won three of the four seats.  We are currently trying to win four of the five seats up for election in the 2024 elections.

Two of the three conservatives elected during 2022 have been very effective in stemming the tide of the liberal ilk.  Because what students are taught or not taught or misguidedly taught, the curriculum committees inside the school system are significantly important to the future of our students.

School Board members, Donald Shreve and Charles Hickman have requested that a member of the School Board be appointed by the Board (not the Big Cheese) to serve on all curriculum committees in the school system.  That one request has brought heartburn to the seven other school board members.

Curriculum committees control whether students are indoctrinated into the new liberal, socialistic, communistic thinking or receive a real and useful education.  This controversy is over whether the Superintendent, the Big Cheese, Matthew Cheeseman, will continue to appoint his favorite liberal teachers to these committees and therefore control the indoctrination of our students or whether they will get a real education.  His supporters are the seven other school Board members.  The Big Cheese controls these seven members.  They do very little work and simply follow his lead in all matters.  That is, the Administrator is in control. These people have surrendered their elected authority to him.  Therefore, he is allowed to prescribe what is taught and what is not taught.  

The importance of these curriculum committees came to light earlier this year when a “woke” social studies package costing about $400,000 was presented to the school board for funding.  (If it were up to me, we would purchase none of these programs.)  It was presented for approval with only a few days’ notice.  The assurance was given that there was no woke teachings in the program. Several of the newly elected school board members (Don Schreve and Charles Hickman) investigated, discovering that the proposed program was shot through with “woke”.    It is significant that the truth was not told.   This is why School Board members should be on curriculum committees.  The seven liberal board members may have to actually do some work if they had to serve on a committee.

This is a contest over who will control your children’s minds.  Our most valuable gift to the future of humanity is to leave a generation of freedom filled minds grounded in the basics of the accumulation of human knowledge.  Filling young heads with misinformation and political dogma is a sin.

The mumblings of Carolyn Walker and Terry Williams are significant.  They propose to put parents on the committees with the principals selecting them.  They are opposed to School Board members serving on these committees.  Arguments are made that School Board members would intimidate and be overly influential on these committees. That is exactly what we want. Someone to change the liberal communistic thinking of these people.

It is significant that the mouthy Big Cheese did not say one word during the discussion about the curriculum committees at the School Board meeting on Tuesday August 6.  It shows how important keeping control of what our children are taught is to this liberal propagandist who comes to us by way of California and Illinois.  He seems to be more interested in indoctrination than education.  An educator would welcome independent views from all directions and not want to dictate who serves.  He and his seven puppets want all who serve to be dependent on him (the Big Cheese).

The Big Cheese is continuing to dictate all aspects of the spending of the 52 million dollars for the new school.  The County Commissioners and the School Board are empowering this autocrat.

We can regain control of our Board of Commissioners and our School Board during the November elections.  We have the opportunity to elect four new school board members and as many as three new commissioners.   I am hoping to win my race.  However, there are only two conservatives running for Commissioner. They are Hood Richardson and Tandy Dunn.  Conservatives for the School Board are: Malissa Polk, Stacey Davis, Daniel Hudson, and David Hudson who is a registered Republican having to run as unaffiliated because of registration issues.

We need change in our school system. What our children are taught is important.   If we continue to vote the way we have always voted, we will get the same kind of decisions we have gotten.  If these people will not change we need to change the people who make the decisions.  If you are a parent or grandparent of a school-age child you need to step up and find out what is going on and then vote for change.  If you do not have children in the public schools you still have vested interest in the quality of public education in our county, which produces our employees and impacts the value of your property when/if you need to sell.  It is time for you to get involved and take a stand.