Carteret County School Board Primary Elections are ongoing. March 3, 2020 it the final day you can vote, and you must vote at your assigned precinct. It is critical to vote for the best candidates, and CCTPP recommend reelecting Travis Day and electing Jerry Buttery to continue to hold the school administration accountable for expenditure of taxpayer dollars, and representing the conservative values parents in Carteret County expect. Below is some information you may find useful in making your decision.
A lot has been made of Carteret County Superintendent Mat Bottoms’ sudden retirement. He has pointed the blame at the Carteret County School Board, and asked voters to research candidates before voting. Of course, this is good advice for anyone running for elective office, but rarely done.
Bottoms wants you to believe that partisan school board elections is a major reason he retired early. But if you are over 50 you’ve heard Paul Harvey’s admonition “here’s the rest of the story.”
School Boards are elected by the voters to oversee the spending and educational programs of the school administration. The school administration is to develop educational programs and curriculum within the guidelines of the Board of Education who were elected to represent the voters’ interests and values. Unfortunately, many school administrators are confused and think the Board of Education works for them rather than those who elected them to office.
School Administrators have used School Boards as “rubber stamps” to approve budgets and curriculum without question. This has led to inefficiency, overspending, and the introduction of curriculum, like inappropriate sex education to the very young, that is contrary to the values of parents and taxpayers. Mecklenburg County and Charlotte are prime examples of these abuses in North Carolina. A liberal sex education program patterned after the Charlotte/Mecklenburg school system has no business being implemented in Carteret County. Parents and other Carteret County citizens helped bring attention to inappropriate sex education here. The election of partisan school board members is crucial to helping prevent inappropriate programs and decisions in education. The current board has worked to maintain our values.
However, upon his announced resignation, Mat Bottoms chose to attack recent school board election changes as one of his reasons for resigning (more about that later). He claims that changes to the school board elections were done in secret. Either Mr. Bottoms was not informed of the plans to change to partisan elections, or he is knowingly misrepresenting the process of changing the election process that took place over a two and one half year process.
The procedure to change the Board of Education election process began with a draft resolution that I authored. Mr. Bottoms claimed that the resolution was done in secret. To the contrary, the draft resolution was emailed to four members of the Board of Education for comment. No request was made not to share the draft resolution with anyone. BOE members were free to share with any other BOE members or any school administrators. I received email comments from two BOE members, a phone call from one BOE member, and no response from the fourth. Two BOE members said they had NO problem with the draft resolution, and the other offered several comments that I incorporated into the draft resolution. Do you actually believe that not one of these BOE members shared this draft with anyone in the school administration? The second draft incorporating comments from the BOE was then emailed to six of the seven Board of Commissioners for review and comment. One of the commissioners did not have an email at the time. Of the six county commissioners, three expressed varying degrees of opposition. Three others were supportive, and the seventh verbally agreed with the resolution. Given that the three opposing commissioners were very close to the then school superintendent, do you believe he knew nothing about the proposed resolution like Mat Bottoms claims?
The resolution was then provided to the Carteret County NC Legislative members for review, comment, and support. Then I decided to let the issue rest for a while. When I resurrected the resolution, some BOE members had changed, and some Board of Commissioners had changed. The resolution was passed by the BOC, it was opposed by two BOE members who had previously agreed to the resolution, it was endorsed by the Carteret County GOP, and forwarded to the NC Legislature (NCLEG) as a local bill. During the NCLEG process, seven other counties signed onto and adopted partisan school board elections. That brought the total number of counties requiring partisan school board elections to over twenty one at that time, and the number of counties has now increased.
Partisan school board elections has widespread support because it provides voters with transparent information where school board members stand on critical issues like sex education and fiscal responsibility.
Two current Republican school board candidates oppose partisan school board elections because they believe that they can compromise with Democrats on your values. Sort of like Representative Nancy Pelosi ripping up President Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address. Is that the kind of compromise you want for your children? One of these school board candidates has avoided our public schools for much of her children’s education. She private-schooled and homeschooled her children (which I applaud) but she has zero experience in public school administration. While the other school board candidate opposes partisan school board elections because she says “politics is harming Carteret County schools,” but she could not provide a single example of what harm was being done or what she would do to correct the problem at a recent public forum.
So why does Mat Bottoms not like partisan school board elections? Could it be that he doesn’t like working with the school board that actually provided oversight, but wants a school board that is a rubber stamp? Could it be that he was hired by the school board, and they are his boss representing your values and tax dollars? Might it be because he was only making $165,000 per year and asked for a raise that was not granted? Could it be because the school board knew that if they granted his raise request that they would have less money for teachers? Maybe because he told teachers there wasn’t any money in the budget for them to buy supplies (that they use their own money to buy), but he later spent on unneeded furniture? Or maybe he requested support for a referendum to build another school (that is actually needed) but he refused to provide details to the BOE as to how the money (in excess of $25 million) would be used?
Now if I were you, I’d want my school board to know that taxpayer money was being wisely spent. Apparently Mr. Bottoms and the people he is supporting for the school board are just “RUBBER STAMPS.”
The recent flurry of Letters to the Editor are from a small group of individuals who are taking advantage of Carteret County taxpayers. They are mostly upper middle income families like the dentist who is unnecessarily benefiting from a program to obtain “free” college credits for his children using Carteret County taxpayers money; money that could pay for more teachers in our schools. The dentist can more than afford to pay for specialized education for his own children, but takes money that could be used to help more students. There is plenty of factual information available at www.travisday.com/mast and I encourage you to do your own research.
Vote for Travis Day and Jerry Buttery who will fight for the great school system and teachers our county has and must continue to maintain.