Bryan Moore on Athletics, Academics, and Accountability in Public Education

Peter Pappas: Welcome back to the Carolina Cabinet. I'm your host, Peter Pappas, in studio with Mr. Brian Moore, running for school board at large. Welcome. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me. Good to see you. Thank you for coming back. Since I tracked our our our our former episode. I I you know I'm gonna make sure we have a backup audio this time and we're not gonna do that again. So Brian, you've run for school board before. That's not a mystery, but this time you're back and you seem to be back in force. you're running a much different campaign than what I saw you do last time. There's sixteen people running. so when we get done this afternoon, what's one sentence a voter wants to r should remember when they're walking into the voting booth for you? Way out of the sixteen, I'm one of the only ones that has an actual child in school. Is that so? Absolutely. Okay. So is everybody else just aged out or Yeah. I think Greg West was the last school board candidate. His son graduated a year ago. Okay. Okay, so he's aged out. And now tell me about your child, what grade, what what school? I have one that just graduated Terry Sanford High School and I got one that's entering Terry Sanford was there now as a ninth grader. Okay. Okay. So are we gonna get four more years of four more years more family football legacy is that we're doing a booster club. Booster club, okay. Well and you are the president of Terry Sanford Boosters, are you? Yes, sir. Okay, so you still they let you do that while you run for office? Yes sir. No. No actually I can see it being a conflict, but several years back the school system separated the booster club so they're not tied to the school anymore other than you know what, I think so tell me about a couple of accomplishments you've made on the with as a booster parent. Well, you know, coming in right after COVID, obviously that killed high school athletics. moving around. I think football had to play in the spring and then you couldn't have any fans and all that stuff. So we came into no money. Right. so we Went in and being a restaurant tour like you, Peter, you know, I figured a way to take the concession stands and actually make money with you know, I was sitting there watching people stay in line the entire game. Well, I went in and put POS systems in, I put QR codes around the stadium, people can order from their seats. Check we t we went from doing, you know, fourteen, fifteen hundred a game to over five thousand. Because people could get there and get it. You know, and didn't miss little Johnny or little Betty playing the game. Right. Basically you had people trying to hand you money, but you couldn't take it. Yeah, they stood line the entire and plus they were missing their kids plan or cheering or whatever, you know. So second thing was I went to an an east west game up in Greensboro. Okay. And walked in and they had a jumbotron. Right. And right then there I was like, We got to have that. And everybody I talked to was like, that'll never happen here. Right, right. And if you relied on Cumeland County. schools to help you. I can see why the red tape is What kind of budget do they have for athletic fields and stuff like that? I mean what's well from my understanding is each school gets thirty five thousand dollars at the beginning of the school year and that's their athletic budget for the entire year. And that includes paying referees, buses, bus maintenance, gas, any kind of equipment. That's for every sport they got. Yep. Seventeen sports. I don't think that goes very far. It doesn't. It doesn't. Well, do we even pay referees anymore? Yeah. I mean, I'm not sure why. Yeah, yeah, we're paying the refs. Okay. Okay. So you okay. So I'm gonna just jump right in here because we've had some recent changes on the board. the board rescinded half its consolidation plan about a month after adopting it. So do you think that looks like leadership or do you think they lost their nerve? I think they lost their nerve. Okay. So what's the one thing you would change about how the board's I think it was a communications thing. So how would you change how they communicate with the public? How does that all right? How does that work? Well, I've been to several board meetings and it seems like every time you turn around they're going behind the doors to do their meeting and coming out. And there's nothing's ever reported of what's going on to us. And it keeps us, you know Well, the Clarion call on Facebook and all the other books out there is transparency. We need transparency, but then you have a a populace of parents that simply don't give a damn. Like you you have to be engaged with the school to go. So I'm kind of giving you a little cover about transparency because I I feel like it's incumbent on the parents to participate. But what so let's assume that we can get the parents to be engaged and come. What do you want to see different from the school board operation? Well, I think transparency as far as the parents go is the parents don't know. Right. There's no I mean, like as a as having a child in I don't know anything that's going on at school. I mean, it's it's like w when did that happen? You know, when did that come out? There's no center place you can go to and say, Okay, what's going on at Terry Sanford? What's going on at Douglasburg, what's going on at Southview, you know, this or this or that. And it's just nothing. There's no communication at all. And I think it's time for a board member that doesn't scare to get on video, or isn't scared to get on video, and say, Hey, this is what's going on. What's your opinion? Let's talk about it. Okay. So More regular communication from school board directly to the parents. So right now I There should be some kind of communication person for that board. Don't they have a public information officer or something well okay. Well now let's back up. The school board is responsible to do what? To oversee the superintendent. Okay. It so really is this maybe a superintendent? Yes. Fit so I'm just wanting to make sure we put it responsibly where it lies. Superintendent and cabinet. You know, I'm sure there's somebody on that cabinet that is supposed to be in charge of information. But Like you can see in most things, a lot of things just aren't getting done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, a lot of things fall through the cracks if you go into closed session all the time. That's for sure. so let's talk about where you are with what changes you want to see in a classroom if you win. does that of does that make anything look different regarding like school resource officers, any discipline of the classroom, cell phone usage? What do you want to see different in a classroom? Well, starting in our elementary and pre elementary, technology has to come out. They have to go back to learning how to read and write. Because they're getting into middle school and they're lost and then they're getting onto technology and everything's fed to them that way. And with AI, this is could be very I AI is a great thing, but it can also be very, very dangerous if the kids ain't intelligent enough to use it. And I feel right now they're just getting in there and saying, Here, here's this, I'm gonna send your information that you don't need to talk to me, email me. Right, right. Yeah. You know I don't know, Brian. There's a lot of times it you know that meeting should have been an email. I I have to admit, I you know, so maybe that's not a bad thing. But let's talk about Maybe the report card. So I so and I you know, look, you and I we got some gray hair. Yeah. Me more than you, but you know, we remember back when. We remember when we were coming up, and th th we hear that a lot repeated in the political sphere, you know. We wanna bring back discipline, we wanna bring back why do we even go to using computers instead of textbooks? Well, I think a lot of it was because They were kind of telling the teacher now, this is what you're gonna teach. Okay. There's no doing grade plans. So trying to unify the the lesson plans. Okay. All right. That way they they're trying to indoctrine this is what you're gonna teach the child. Okay. I don't I don't care that you went to school for four years. You know, we know more than you know. Mm-hmm. And we being the state? Yeah. Okay. All right. So so the the the spaghetti monster in the sky is the state. And I don't think, you know, the relationships there anymore. Like I can remember almost 90% of my teachers ask the kids today. Heck, ask them who the presidents were. They probably won't get past Obama. Yeah. No. Well, that was if you grew up during that time, that was your president. That's it. Reagan's my guy. Yeah. What about yours? But they don't teach history anymore. Yeah. No, they don't. They don't. So it was my understanding the computers came into play to help us save money on textbooks. But then it kind of how many textbooks do you think you could buy for one laptop? I don't know. I don't know. And they lose them. Yeah. And they break. Yes. Well, don't you have to as a parent, don't you have to pay a deposit for the technology? I have never paid for one that I know of. Now I know if you lose it, yeah, you had to pay for it. I swear there was a parent that I spoke to who was like we had to put a fifty or a hundred dollar deposit down so my kid can get a laptop. It's like, ooh, somebody's making money on that. So what's gonna so what do you want to see change in those schools? What would be your first hundred days? I wanna see trades go back into our high schools, actual trades, but it needs to start at the middle school level. So they can start preparing. Not everybody's ready for a four year unit. Not everybody needs or wants or can do a four year university. So we need to start teaching There are ways to make a lot of money without having to go through that. But it needs to start at the middle school level. You know, teach getting them ready and we need to set up schools for them. You know, there are certain high schools like Douglas Byrd, it's set up for trades. So how so? How so? It's just one of the older schools that was set up for automotive that had the rooms for it, you know. And s a lot of have You say trades in middle school, I'm envisioning a bunch of kids named Gimpy that are gonna lose fingers and stuff. No, no, no, no. Getting them ready. I ain't saying start it. I mean start talking to about it. Talking to Yeah. That way they can start planning. All right. When they get to high school, if four years isn't isn't their future, getting them ready there. When they're graduating from high school, they're done. They're ready for a career path. Even if they want to do something else, they still have that trade to back them up. You can always go to college. That's what adult education is all about. You're in the restaurant business. How hard is it to get somebody to do the work? It's getting harder. It's just harder to find somebody that can pull their pants up and show up on time and maybe don't smell like weed and they walk in the door, you know. I mean that's that's Fayette's choice herb, it seems like. but no, I I agree with you on that. so just kinda I think you're talking about a paradigm shift though, because for the last I think it was in the fifties when the Harvard NBA came out. Everybody thought that's the path. You gotta go to college. You gotta go to business school. You have to be a white collar individual. And everybody poo-pooed and looked looked down their nose at the people that plum, pull electric, do your HVAC. And then during COVID, what you learned was locked up. COVID changed didn't you couldn't do a damn thing. So I agree with you bringing that in and giving these children an alternative. That I think I think there's a lot of kids that fall through the cracks because they think. I'll never get to a four-year degree. So what the hell else can I do? And let me ask you this question. I mean, you're in the restaurant business. So what does DoorDash, Grubhub, and Uber Eats becoming a $30 trillion business by 2026 tell you? People love lazy. I mean, that that's my take. I mean, God bless them. It starts here. You know. They start here at a young age, a cell phone. And this is all they know how to do. I mean, you want to see something very interesting? Walk to a Go to a middle school and a or actually any of Elementary, middle high school, go to a lunch hour. Okay. All it is is this. Nobody's talking. Well, they're allowed to have their devices, I thought. They're not supposed to, but most or there's only a few teachers in schools that actually have these things that you had to put your cell phone in. The rest of I mean my kid texts me all day long. I hope I don't get in trouble, but you know, I might get called out, but I get text from, Hey Dad, can I get five dollars for a drink machine? Yeah. Okay. You know? But our kids, juniors and seniors are getting out of school at eleven forty five every day. Really? Did you get out eleven forty five? Hell no. I mean, the only week I got out early was seniors. Okay, excuse me. Remember, okay. We we we stayed until three o'clock, four o'clock, you know. But that's a good that's a I'm glad you brought that up. So do you think and I know where you live, do you think that the academy benefits your house or does Terry Sanford benefit your house? Well, Terry Sanford definitely benefits the house for I mean you know what industry you're in. So And would you say, I mean, we're we're the gateway to Fort Brad. Yes. Should we not be the most thriving city? Absolutely. In the country? It's it's circular, Brian. If we don't have good schools, we can't get industry. And if we can't get industry, we can't afford to pay the And in our business and in your other career, in our business they don't move here. Yeah. Look at Force Com cane. Yep. Where do they all move to? Moore County. Yep. Why? Better schools. Better schools. Yep. And we ain't built one in a long time. I There's other things I think there's a reason why they just went to Moore County, but you look, we have problems with crime. We have problems with homelessness. We have we have all the social ills of a big city. And people fail to s treat us like a big city. Even our leaders. They think we're still the fav that is Haymont. Well, when you can go do whatever you want and not get your hand slapped and get right out. yeah. It's like in high school. I mean middle school, high school. So, you know, when we were in school. Well, maybe not the Academy, excuse me. But in public school where I went, you know, if you got in trouble, your butt had to be there on Saturday. Yeah. Yeah. And you had to pick up pine cones, you know, whatever it was, you had to do it. So well, I let me interject let me tell you the Fable Academy, I did some Saturday cleanups. So they did have our butts in there. but I will say that the policies in the public schools are rather draconian when you get into a fight. Don't both kids get suspended now? Yep. Okay. At the academy in middle school, I got into a fight. The headmaster pulled us in. I think they would be suspended for like an hour though. Is that it? I don't know. Well, the guy pulled us in his office and he made us tell us what tell me what happened. Okay, now you're gonna shake hands. And this kid's crying over what I said about his mother. And like and I couldn't believe he told the guy that I said that about his mom. But anyway, he I'll tell you off air. We had to shake hands and we left. And then there was no more conflict. But An adult intervened. Yeah. See, so how that's not happening in public school though. No. As soon as one even the victim gets hit, they're both. Listen, when we were in there and I and I think they called it ideas. ISS. Well, it wasn't called that. Well I don't think it was called it was called something else that I may have been something like that. But ideal. You had something like that. Yeah. And and I was like, I had bad kid friends in the public school. You had to spend three days with that person you argued with. You actually ended up being friends afterwards because you couldn't talk to anybody else. You know, you had to eat lunch with them. You had to go I mean, you know, three days in a classroom with no social you know It worked a lot. I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. Because w what one thing we're lacking in in the Facebooks and all this stuff, conflict resolution. Talking to one another and then saying, you know, I think you're a dick, but you know what? You're my kind of dick. We're cool. You know, and just move on with life. You know, we spent you have to be and that's part of maturing. And I don't think these kids are getting any of that. No, it's any of that. And it's so the other night we had a conversation and the conversation was what are we gonna do about TAs and them having to leave the room and drive buses? So the it's a big problem because right now people aren't applying for jobs. at our schools, I mean I'm talking about janitors, we're short because they are requiring them to get their C DLs and drive buses. And a lot of them just don't want to do that. What about cafeteria workers? I heard Well they actually work for the state. That's a whole separate entity. You know, they don't they changed that several years ago where it's not tied to the school. but, you know, TAs, janitors, I mean I most schools are down several janitors and that's what are we where's the pay for these guys now? I mean I It must not be much. I want to say, you know, they're what, fifteen, sixteen dollars an hour. Okay. All right. Well that's better than starting with me, but you know, I don't start anybody less than ten bucks an hour these days, even a high school kid. Yeah. So But so I mean, I I you know, when we were in school, again, maybe not the academy because I don't think we go. I don't think they had school buses. We did not. You rolled up in Rolls Royce's or Mercedes. Mercedes, but they are drivers are actually 16, 17, 18 year olds in high schools. You didn't have to have a CDL. Now, I'm not saying a 16, 17, 18 year old should be driving a bus right, you know, without proper 18 year old, yes. That can get a CDL, get properly trained. I mean, they can join the military, they can drive big trucks, they can carry guns and then go to war. I think they can be taught. But the problem I my problem is we're not giving enough trust to our kids to handle life. I get that, but see, I've met some of these kids, and I'm a little concerned with giving them a what six ton missile to drive around in a school bus. But I agree. There's a lot of adults I wouldn't either. Yeah. Well, you've driven around fatal, so you can get that. Been down Skybo at the rush hour. I I did hear you mention that about the school buses, and I did try to look something up. So that ended in 1988, having the seniors driving. so it's a little bit before our time. Just little bit. They drove high school in n eighty eight. Yeah, I graduated in ninety four. Well, I mean, I mean they drove they drove elementary buses. I they're junior high buses all right, all So you did see that. yeah, and they used to take the buses home. You said it and I'm like he's not that old. We're like the same age. Y you go you'd go through neighborhoods and there'd be fifteen buses in the neighborhood 'cause they got to take home. Okay. You know, so I mean you see every kid driving Well, I I agree. I say kids or young adults, but well yeah, ev come on. Everybody's a kid now. Yeah. So would there be a way to maybe institute the training for a a newly turned eighteen year old senior to learn how to do that? Well, they're getting out of school at eleven forty five. So they could drive home. I mean they can start training then. I mean how long does it take to get I've never got my C DL so I'm not sure how long the class is. I don't think it's very long. Fayable tech has a has a burgeoning C DL course, right? A truck driving course. So don't we work with Fayable Tech? Can we not get Well, that's where they're supposed to be going at eleven forty five. Okay. And it's a perfect job for a senior. Yeah. Get up, work in the morning, go to class, get out, drive, and you're done. You can still play a sport at night. Mm-hmm. I mean, there's all kinds of things you you know, still make money. Yeah. And make money. And am I am I saying it's gonna be easy? No, it's not. And people say, Well, what about all the crazy, you know, disrespectful kids? Well, it's not a it's a privilege to ride the bus. It's a privilege to go to school. Mm-hmm. So enforce the rules we have. Yes, enforce the rules. All right. Make them walk and figure their way to school. If they can't behave themselves. On the bus. Mm-hmm. Or in the school. Okay. No, none of the science saying right away when you say that I can see some angry parents saying my little Johnny was an angel and doesn't deserve to be, because that's what has changed since you and I have been in school. No kids wrong. Yeah. The kids are always right. It's like, no, they're not. It's so somebody says, Well, the customer's always right. I got a message the other night and it always makes you feel good when somebody talks about your kid and it was from a parent that my son goes and visits. He said, I just want to tell you. Because your son is so polite. He sits down and talks to me and my wife for ten or fifteen minutes every time he's here. Mm-hmm. And that's exactly the way I was. I I talked to anybody and everybody. But and you know, it makes you feel good as a parent that you know you're pointing in the right direction. 'Cause I will not and my kids know that I will not tolerate no disrespect. Even if I feel like it's the other person's fault, mm-hmm that I tell them that's my job to handle. You come get me, I'll handle it. You don't ever disrespect an adult. Right. And it and it is. I mean At at some point in time in our w life, parents have to be held accountable for their child. You're responsible for them until they're eighteen years old, no matter how you look at it. Yeah. You know, so start enforcing that. And things will change. But you if you if you just rub it off, what's gonna change? Yeah. They're gonna keep coming back. Keep coming back. They'll keep ruining your big event you work. That is the problem overall we have with our social fabric breaking down of two parent house. I mean, that that gets into a whole other You're around with your with your sons. You model the behavior. Who the hell's modeling it for 90% of these? And I'm a divorced parent, you know, but that's one thing that me and my ex wife agreed upon was the children are first. Even before any issue we have, our children are going to be first. And I mean, for the most part, I mean, and they were in elementary school when we divorced. I mean They turned out well. mean, I got one start in college playing baseball. I mean, you know, we have parents and well. I mean, but you know, parents have I think if you start holding them responsible in some way, we'll start shifting something. Absolutely. And the first time they got missed work because little Johnny got in a fight or, you know, got in trouble, whatever. But it also goes back to you said something earlier about security. And I said this the last time I ran, and I still believe in this, that we need a school board police force. You know, we don't have enough SROs to go around. You know, I think a city cop is covering three or four different elementary schools. You know, the high schools have one and it's do they at least have one per high school? They have one full time. Okay. And it's not enough. Yeah. I mean it really is not now how many did we have before the sheriff decided to screw the whole county? I'm pretty sure every school had a SOR officer when the sheriffs were handed. Okay. So at least one per school. Yes sir. Okay. Yeah. I've been very vocal that Sheriff Wright screwed us big time. yeah. And Nobody nobody has pushed him on that in any of the fluff pieces he's been doing with WFNC. And it doesn't even come up in the race now. No. You got two sheriffs running. No. I mean, I'm like, this is important. Yeah. These are our children. You know, these are God's gift and we have to protect them. Yeah. You know, and for no force, I mean, Charlotte does this program. Mm-hmm. And it's I mean, would it cost more? Sure. But you're protecting your child. Well, what I like is it's another option. For the kids. They're a junior, rising senior, they're gonna turn 18, you know, depending on where that age cutoff, you know, was. They could go into the bus driving program and earn a CDL. Yeah. They could go into B L E T training. Yes. Fire training. Yeah. Or fire training. You don't fire training with your fireman at 18. I there you go. You we I had a discussion with a cop and I was like, you know, if we had our own police force, they they could also help with that. And sometimes 'cause most of them be retired police officers anyways. Yeah. And then make them go work traffic stuff. You know, accidents and things like that until they turn twenty one and can get a gun. Okay. But you but you have a pipeline. Exactly. Most things do not have a pipeline. I was gonna mention that 'cause the city of Fayetteville uses Fayetteville Tech for the bus drivers. That's right. They try to recruit so everybody's suffering with not enough people, but th certainly there's got to be a better way to get the school board to say, Hey, can we have a couple of slots? Now I think the city pays them for the curriculum. I think you're right. And then They guarantee them a job at a certain pay for whatever, but why can't we do the same thing? What what what me and you are sitting here doing is what nobody on that board I'm not gonna say nobody, I shouldn't say nobody, but we're sitting here spitting ideas. Take these ideas. Maybe my bus idea was not the greatest idea. I think it is. I mean, it's it's not brand new. That's the thing. It has history. The accident rate was lower than than it is now. I mean you heard about Douglas Bird. Yeah you said it. Point six eight now point or was six before, point six eight now, but yeah, yeah. You know, not a huge difference, but you know, and it's nothing you heard about the wreck with Douglas Bird football team. I mean, that was very fortunate. None of those kids got hurt. Yeah, yeah. That was very recent. And that was a much older adult. Yeah. You know, and it yeah, I I see it at night when we're driving kids home from Football games and you got cheerleaders and bands. I mean, they're traveling a couple hours. It's 11, 12 o'clock at night. You've either got a senior citizen driving them home or a coach that's been at school since all day. You know, all day, you know, just coached an exhausting game in the hundred and five degree weather. Do you think that's safer than a I mean, I'm not saying I had somebody question me today about the maturity of an 18 year old versus an adult. Well, sure, they're not as mature. But the reflexes are better. Mm-hmm. You know, I'm sure they're more awake. You know, it's it's there's no perfect answer. But the point is we have to start trusting our kids with some some heavier things to do because right now they're graduating, they've experienced nothing. And I'm guilty of that. I sent my kid off to school and I was worried about him eating because I didn't know if he knew how to cook. You know, and and What what's the outcome, does he or not? Yeah, man, the boy does good. He goes to the grocery store. I mean, he probably eats the same thing. I think he cooks a pound of hamburger meat and eats tacos or you know, something you know, with hamburger meat. But I'm proud of him. Yeah. And he he's learning, you know, we give him a certain amount of money. Uhhuh. He goes to the grocery store. I mean, he he picks his own stuff. What school did he end up going to? He's playing baseball at Pitt Community College. Okay. So hopefully he has a good year and Wow, see he's a freshman, he's living On his own. Yeah. Got his own apartment down there. We he rooms with a local guy here. And I mean they're he's very good. I mean, he he's not his dad because you know, at eighteen years old in Greenville and I was there, I wasn't home at ten o'clock at night. You know, but I was in a bar business too down there. So he's he's I'm very proud of him. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, if we're sending these kids at eighteen years old to go to the military, certainly Cumberland County School Board can figure out To task the superintendent with some kind of curriculum to let these children prove they can handle the responsibility when they turn 17 and a half. So at 18, they're ready to roll. I mean, I want to see why is that out of our reach? Right. And I want to see the focus off of test scores and more on giving these kids a future. Because I feel like now, the day they graduate, they're kicked out. And I truly think. I truly think that that's the reason they never come back. You know, they don't come back and visit. They don't come to ball games because there was no relationship there in the last several years. Okay. I mean, just nothing built. Well, and that kind of brings me back to our when I said, you know, did they just lose their nerve with the school board? I think rationally, when we're talking about reconsolidating schools, we know that the kids cost us about sixteen thousand ahead. And if the place is half empty, consolidate it. But on the other hand, you've got neighborhood schools that anchor the poor and minority communities. So they feel shortchanged. And now it publis it punishes the neglect, not the waste of it. So how do you because you mentioned the walk in the school thing. If we close some of those schools, those kids can't just walk to school. They have to have buses. They do. So what How do you justify that to a parent that they're losing their school? That we're gonna have to consolidate and we're gonna have to bust your kid over here. Well, I'd say it's it's our own faults for not participating and giving back to our schools. Okay. Okay. So you look at major colleges. Pretty nice places. When we look at Faithful State or Mercanton Road, I pretty nice place. I think they just paid a million dollars for a fountain. Yeah. Yeah. You know why? Hell go ahead. They have somebody out there full time raising money. So I had a plan was to take our county A D, make him a cabinet member. Who's the A D? It's Chad Barber. I mean great guy. What position is athletic director? Thank you. Yeah county I'm sorry. Yeah county athletic director. You gotta talk you playing people watching they don't you Fable Academy I forgot. Yeah yeah we I did not play sports. You know they have you know actually Fable Academy has a great athletic director. I th I don't know if he's still there or not. We had a we had a really good soccer program, but basketball, not so much. It just it just never took off. But to lose baseball was a real surprise, but yeah. so to move him to a cabinet member because he should be. I mean he's in charge of So fr he works for the superintendent, but you want to bring him as a member of the answers to some a ca another cab a cabinet member. I'm not sure. I think it's I'm not sure who it is either. So there's a designated cabinet member that's like Like the co county commissioners have the fire commissioner and that's correct. Okay, I gotcha. So we this is the plan I have because we our athletics are failing terribly bad. was to take him, make him a cabinet member, and then the ADs in the schools become full time A Ds. Right now they're eighty percent assistant principals, twenty percent athletic directors, most of managing seventeen sports. How do you do that twenty percent of your day? And to having to be there at seven o'clock in the morning And not a nice not leaving until ten, eleven o'clock when the football. Okay. Well, how do they do it? I mean, d do they have you said seventeen sports. Do they have seventeen individual coaches? Yeah. Is that some co and some coach multiple sports. Some will co some will coach some in the fall and say something else is. At least he's got to manage. That's quite a quite a lot. And and and hiring, you know, making sure you have referees for everything. You know, certain certain events you got to set up for. But, you know, they need to answer to the county AD and not a principal because right now we're putting so many principals in schools that don't have athletic backgrounds and could care less about it. So you need to take that out of their control because our sports are found and sports are a foundation of a school. It's a proven fact if you're heavy in sports and you're doing well, that your GPAs are higher. Your attendance is higher and your school's doing better, which brings you better property value all the way around the school because people want to be in that school district. And I know you're strong in the athletics. You've got boys that played well and you know, you've, you know, carried on the more mantle and stuff like that. You're very proud of them. But, you know, sell that to a parent whose kid doesn't play a sport. Sports is your only income. Okay. So if you're wanting extra income to come in to help fund ban, Fund arts. These are all non-income producing things. You have to focus on the thing that builds money and build it to where it's bringing in so much that it trickles down. I mean, I can tell you right now, a Friday night will never be a Friday night without a band. It'll never be a Friday night without cheerleading. Okay. It'll never be a Friday night without when we were in school, which we've gotten away from this, when all your arts set up tents before games displayed to parents. what we're doing and involving the community. Yes. And bringing it and making it a family of I went out to Kate Fear. I mean to interrupt I went out to Cape Fear and I'm giving Kate Fear props. That doesn't happen very much because we're arch rivals. But I am vote I am running for at large. So I gotta you know no no great great people out there. Okay. You know. Okay. Great people out there. But we went out there Friday night because and I'll get into this subject after this, but we went in there and it was such a family atmosphere. You can see all the mom and dads and kids running around playing football and it's a lot. Terry Sanford's exact same way. Everybody has a bad reputation. We don't have stuff that go on. I'm not saying stuff that go on, but it's very safe. Very safe. I mean, but it's just, you know, you you just it's the flow of a good time and you see all that money, all those ways you can make money to help fund that school that we just don't jump on. You know, we were able at Terry Sanford to put in a jumbotron, you know. Everybody said we couldn't do it. We did it. How much was that Jumbotron? Is that half a million dollars? Up front? Yeah. Holy crap. Yep. Okay. Half a million dollars. Well, and this is what I was gonna ask you as a as the booster president. do you have do you have requirements from the school or anything to where what you bring into those games has to trickle down to the arts. Like is it mandated that you need to give them money? No. but There's no PTA. I think that's what it's called. PTA. I mean, I I see what you're trying to do is make the athletics program a profit center. You're trying to make it to where this brings attention. Let's raise a couple bucks. Your A D, you take you take that 80% assistant principal way. Their job is to actually make sure sports are running right, but to fundraise. They can get out into the community. There's tons of businesses because it's got to be sold to the community. Hey, people writing Carolina, East Carolina, NC State checks that don't need it. I mean, they got trust funds of hundreds of millions of dollars. And it affects you in no way. Favel Academy affects my house in no way. Yeah. You know, Terry Sanford does. If we build these schools, then what we're doing is we're protecting our property value. We're bringing industry here, but it has to be somebody that's gonna s you know. Fundraise, all I mean, call the old alumni, because once you graduate, nobody contacts them. Call all alumni, hey, we got this going on, we got this going on, we got a play going on. You know, everybody wants to go to a theater or something. Nobody wants to hear from the school if the only thing is about money, money, money. I mean, as an alumni, I actually myself and some other of my college buddies, we took ourselves off the alumni list of Emory University because when we went to our reunion, they had safe spaces and we said, No, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, not one more dollar. Right. But you know. It's nice to be reached out to hey, we have an exhibition game. We have the that would be Yeah. There fundraise is not just you writing a check. Yeah. Fundraising is you showing up, buying a hot dog, buying a hamburger, paying for a ticket, you know, more butts in the seats. Does what? Isn't that what you say in the restaurants? Yeah. Yep. But the other schools. I know Terry Sanford is Terry Sanford like to me is like E.E. Smith and Cape Fear. They have very large Alumni and boosters, like they're very, very well known for that. What about Pine Forest? What about Douglas Bird? Do they have similar? Douglas Bird's probably got some bigger names than we do. Okay. From the history. Douglas Byrd in the 90s, in the 80s, was a powerhouse. I mean, they won a state championship. I mean, they had Brad Edwards that you know played for the Washington Redskins. I mean, several. Every school's got those people, but you never see them come back. What I'm getting at is what I'm Saying it sounds like a good idea. Yeah. Can we reproduce that in every scenario? That's I think you can that's the thing. How how franchisable is that model? and at what point do we need to stop with the community? Because I already paid my property taxes. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I'm not you you know what I do for Terry Sanford. We do that live remote down there at the restaurant every Wednesday. Absolutely. and for those of you watching, if you have a student or a student athlete, long sub drinking 12 bucks. Yeah, 12 bucks are great. That's a whole sub, a drink, and either fries, onion rings. 7 30 tonight, matter of Yeah. I'll be there. Yeah, I'll be there. So so I I I do stuff, you know, where I can. that, you know, and all that's I mean, because you do that. Terry Stanford is the only football program that has a radio away and home. wow. Yeah, because because of sponsors, you know, you sponsored radio station and and that's the reason we have it. So it makes it a unique So they're going on the road with y'all? Yeah. I did not know that. yeah, we do every one of our games is on the radio, playoff games, everything. So, you know, it's the way I look at it is you have to start somewhere. And we don't have anybody focusing. Look at the spaces we could rent. Look at the party spaces you could rent on the weekend. All those buildings, all those gyms. I went in front of the county commissioners about four or five months ago, however long it's been, about turfing our football fields because we're spending so much money on those fields. You could do that and then work a deal with the city where Wreck can play there on Saturday, because right now their fields are ridiculous. They're as bad as the high school fields, you know. And rent space. You could rent the travel on the weekends. It's a economic boom. You hotels because people will come in here for the travel football or travel soccer. You know, every high school could be busy on Saturdays and Sundays with concession coming in. There's gyms you can rent. There's rooms you can rent if somebody needs them. Throughout the summer, why why couldn't we use those places? If somebody is organized the the schools can bring in income, but you have to have people on that board that are willing to talk about it. I mean, now I'm not saying every ideal I have is perfect, but I I may have a piece. You may have a piece. Naturally most people look at the schools as a re economic driver. Now, I say that But your eight hundred million dollars in repairs or in back in repairs. But I say that about the economic driver. You know, we can't put an E. Smith at striker golf course with free land from the government, you know, although it's gonna be a ninety nine year lease, and people are like, Well, why can't You know, then they're gonna keep the building. It's like, yeah, man, because we get the land is expensive. but we ultimately decided not to place it out there because they used Jack Britt, they used Cape Fear as the last built schools saying, check out the GIS, the gu the from the tax records, see what was there before, and look what we did. We put Cape Fear, now we have a bustling corridor. We put Jack Britt bustling. I mean, come on. Everybody wants to live in Jack Britt right now, seems like. I mean and people still want to live in Terry's hand. Absolutely. No, I'm not yeah, not better. I mean and I agree with that scenario. I mean, because I mean, putting on Fort Bragg, I mean, that's a great thing. I mean, I'm sure it would have been a super, super nice school, but it doesn't benefit anybody. There are a lot of pluses and there's a lot of cons out there. however, you know, the economic it to me, the most comical thing about the economic driver part. was the one that brought it up as an objection, I don't think knows what economic driver means. But somebody fed them that and that was I almost think that right now, I mean, you really think about it, I mean, you're a real estate person as well as I am, you know, I'd be buying land on Mercoson Road all that good. Mm-hmm. Because, you know, you you got that five hundred and thirty one million dollar HUD deal and you're gonna have a brand new high school. Yep. What's that gonna bring? Well, look, regarding that HUD deal, I hope to hell it comes to fruition because that's not the first economic corridor we raise money for and it just doesn't seem to go anywhere. Right. I fault city council for that. They have sent back the citizens there have sent back the same representative for I think twelve years now. And they have done absolutely nothing for that corridor. And I hope to hell it does come to fruition. It's like anything, it's like any board, Peter. You know, this it's it's you can't keep putting people on these things that don't have a vision and can't work, no matter if you got a R or D in front of your name, you can't work with each other, do what's best for the child. And wait, look how many years it took for them to decide to E Smith. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy. Well, they that there, you know, it was about transparency and the alumni raised hell. But it was all very passionate, uninformed opposition. And some of it was contrary just to be contrarian. And it's like what you said earlier about the buses, you know, with Well what the kid can't ride the bus. Mm-hmm. You know, because you closed the school. Yeah. Well, that'd have been about seventy-five percent of those kids that Yeah. And I think I told somebody during that, I said, you know what, you guys have the strongest alumni association. I'm pretty sure y'all will figure out a solution for those kids if you're so worried about them being left. But that's just me being punchy, I guess. So so I got a pretty good idea of who, what, when where and why with you. So tell us where if as Laura would say, you know, campaigns run on money and volunteers. Absolutely. And you know how expensive they are. I do. I certainly do. And I'm glad to see you doing it and not me this time. So, you know. so where people miss you on the trail. Yeah. I'll be watching from afar. where do people find you? Website, phone number, email, just go ahead and give us that now. M-O-O-R-E, the number four N C. dot com is my website and all my information's on there. You can donate on there and and it would be much appreciated. it's very expensive to run. Mm-hmm. Every one of those pretty signs you put in your yard has a cost to it. You know it does. And right now I think yesterday they started allowing to go out through the city. So you know you're going through many of those. I think I've been through like four or five hundred so far. But you know it's that's it is what it is. But when you believe in something, you know, I just believe that we've been going in a reverse situation and there's no fix To the schools, if you're not gonna put people on the board that can figure out a way to fix them because they are in bad shape. Well, you know, anybody watching, if you don't a hundred percent agree with Brian or you do agree with him, you know, reach out, ask him the questions you'd like to ask him. you know, it takes brave men to just say what they think should happen. I had a guy from Green Party on here and I said, I don't agree with none of this stuff, but I appreciate you saying it because somebody's got to. Right. Somebody has to throw the out. And it and I'm an idealist. I mean I I ha I s I think all day long about how to sell real estate, how to do this, how to do that. I guess it hurt my feelings if somebody tell that they disagree with me. Yeah. Because I'm able to take a piece of what they have and a piece of what I have and we make something better out of it. Absolutely. And that's the whole deal, but but that's what we don't have anymore. The students aren't partisan, man. We gotta take care of the kids. That's right. They're gonna good place to to learn in and pay the teachers well and I mean you're you're at a point now, I mean you have to fix these schools because I mean it's it It's mine, your income. Yeah. It's everybody's income. Yeah. I mean, it's people gonna move here, they ain't gonna move here. And we've proven the fact that they're not moving here. Yeah. Yeah. That's true. Well drive to Moore County and look at their schools. Little little different property values out there. Yeah. So well, everybody, thank you for watching this afternoon, the special segment of the Carolina Cabinet with Mr. Brian Moore, running for Cumberland County School Board at large. Thank you for being here. And until next time, I'm the Carolina Cabinet, your host, Peter Pappas. We'll see you next time. Thank you.