Tom Hatch on School Equity, and Fixing Cumberland County Education

Peter Pappas: you Hello everybody, good afternoon and welcome to the Carolina cabinet. I'm your host Peter Papas in studio with Mrs. Lovely Laura Musler. Hello, hello. And not so lovely but still pretty cool. Come on man. Tom Hatch, Mr. Tom Hatch. How you doing sir? That's the problem of being familiar with your guests. kind of, you know, yeah, I'm sorry. That's okay. I'm not offended. We'll still be friends. So here on the cabinet, we know this is a smarter style of radio. Our job is to give a voice to the conservatives of Fayetteville, Cumberland County and beyond. And with that. Welcome everybody. Thank you. And what have we been up to the last two days? Have we gotten into any trouble? I did. Did you? Yeah. Have you been disciplined? Only on myself. I feel bad for I made somebody cry. You did? Made somebody cry. That used to be the perk of my job. That was not my intent. My intent was to make somebody see that what they're doing is hurting and I perhaps was a little... Dismissive of the pipe was like I can't even remember what that little gnats name is and that was kind of me Did you at least say I'm just hitting you because it this hurts me? No, she's got up and she's unable to accept any responsibility for her own actions Which does should not affect me? But it did she got up picked up her stuff and started crying and left and I accused her of having the emotional intelligence that you need here on the cabinet because I certainly don't have some of that so Mr.. Hatch what have you been up to the last week or two? Not much man, just watching stuff happen in common kind of schools, all the fun stuff. see you. So you ran for a school board ⁓ last cycle district three. Yep. And, ⁓ you had two competitors in that race. Okay. ⁓ I know you worked your, your butt off doing that. saw you out there working and I definitely know how knowledgeable you are. So, ⁓ hopefully we'll see you again on that realm, but, I've seen you be very active. You haven't gone quiet into that night. So there's too much. There's so much going on that I don't even know where to begin. So I, I, I keep hearing this word, Leandra, Leandra, Leandra. Can we talk about Leandra? Sure. We can talk about it. I mean, it's dead, but yeah, we can talk about it. It's over. Well, how do we kill it? let's look what was so what was Leandro because I have that it was a lawsuit It was filed in 94. Yep. It was named after a student Leandro who if I'm not mistaken, is he not old enough now to be his own attorney? He actually is. is okay and This is where I think the state screwed up the opportunity for a sound basic education, right? Define that define made that Really open to interpretation and layman. So sure take it from the professional Educator stance so sound basic education. Can we hold one second? Yeah, sure Can we hear what his background is so that we know when he's speaking he's speaking of just? Jumping right into Leandro. Tell us about you so that we can get some reference I don't know who he is ever seen him. Yeah, I say he's credible. He's correct That's not okay. Mr. Hatch go ahead and tell us the who, what, when, where, and why please. yeah, born and raised here in Cumberland County. Graduated from Terry Sanford in 86. Went to UNC Wilmington. Went into education right out of college. Taught school for seven years. Five years at Ann Chestnut Junior High back in the day. Two years at Southview High School. Became a North Carolina principal fellow. Got my admin degree. First AP job was at Reed Ross Classical School. I was there for six years as we opened the school. turned it into a classical year-round school, grades six through 12. That was a great school. Yes, absolutely. I there for six years, then I was main principal at Ancestor Middle School, which is interesting. So went back to the school that I started teaching ⁓ and ⁓ I was hired to go in and really literally clean it up, get things back together. ⁓ problem solve things that needed to be done at the When you say clean it up, what does that mean? Physically, culturally. So like the school was not clean and it was, there's just a lot of things that needed to be done culturally with regard to school climate and getting teachers on board and whatnot and raising academic scores and whatnot. Went back to Reed Ross in 2010 because they'd gone through the transition of principals during that time. Didn't have really good consistent leadership. went back there basically to kind of do the same thing. Write the ship, get it on the right course, was there for seven years as the principal. And so that was interesting, started my admin group career there, went back to be the principal there. And then in 2017, went to Terry Sanford to kind of do the same thing, had a big change in administration leadership. So it sounds like you're very well respected in the school district area as being somebody who stripped straightens the ship out or right the way. He's a fixer. Absolutely. So my wife and I have conversations like I don't need you to fix it. I just need you to listen. Yes ma'am. I'm listening. Because it's just my DNA. I'm there to fix. I was at Terry Sanford for five years and then I retired after 32 years in the school system. All in Carmelin County. Okay nice. Well your experience with cleaning up is what I think that really has galvanized you to be pretty tough. Yeah. To go into Fixing. Yeah, I mean and I like what you said about it was and chestnut, right? You know, it was dirty physically Why was students gonna be happy to come to school if the place is a mess and setting the table for them to be educated? Yeah seems very important Yeah, we're behind a lot of capital improvements for our school system Yeah, which I think would have probably helped well and it goes back to you know, I know we're sort of jumping off the topic here Okay, so sound basic education is not just about sitting in the classroom and the teacher yapping away. It's everything. It's resources. It's the building. It's making sure that you've got the highly qualified teachers who are coming to you with degrees in education. A lot of teachers are nice. Teachers from other countries are great because they're filling in the gaps. But it would be awesome to have folks that are coming in with experience working in public schools. in North Carolina who have gone to college to do this, who this is their passion. And that is just no longer a thing anymore. And so not only that, you're also looking at making sure that you've got excellent leadership in the buildings, that there's a plan to improve a school, that you're just not coming in and cleaning house and kicking ass and taking names and, okay, what do we do? Can you say that word on that? He can say it here. know, it's a sound basic education is all of those things. ⁓ Resources, personnel, those things cost money. And when you look at how there's a hundred today, there's a hundred and fifteen school districts in the state of North Carolina with a hundred counties. So there's a couple of counties that are city schools and county schools. I don't know what it was in ninety four, probably around the same number, maybe one twenty or so. ⁓ Some of our counties in our state are very impoverished. They're also low wealth because they're just not an industry. They're agrarian. There's just not a huge tax base. It's not very well populated. know, grandma, grandpa lived on the farm for a hundred years. You know, you can only get so much blood out of that turnip. But those kids in North Halifax or, you know, somewhere out in the Western part of the state, They deserve the same well-rounded education as a kid living in, let's say, Orange County or Charlotte Meck or Wake County or Guilford County. Do you not find that that's pretty problematic when you don't have the actual facilities, teachers, or anything like that, in order there's no competition? The kids out in the country have to go out to the country to get an education. So who defines that it's fair that they're getting this education? as opposed to a different one? Well, that's where the standards are coming in from the state. And so they say everybody's going to teach these standards. It's going to look the same in all schools across the state. And you're going to all take the same test. so that's great. So I go to XYZ school in Northampton County. And my teacher may or may not have been here for a whole school year or could have been here for multiple years. ⁓ Sometimes you've got folks that are in schools that are, you know, seven or 800 high school kids and that's one high school for that entire county. ⁓ That tax base, those county commissioners have to make a decision on where that funding is going to go to cover all of the needs of the county, not just public education, but fire and sewer and whatever else that they have needs for. And so when you find that you've got this inequity there, then the state says, well, we see you and we hear you, but here's the funding that's coming from the state of North Carolina. Because you don't have that many students, you're not going to get that much funding. But you've got Charlotte Meck and Wake, are big, huge, mammoth counties. They're going to get millions and millions of dollars. And of course, rightly so, because they have more kids there. So you've got to find the balance that you don't, because you're not well, you don't have a a large county you're not well represented that you somehow don't fall through the cracks and we're even seeing that even in our own county with our own schools here that has become part of a big talk about some schools need to be closed, some schools need to stay open, some schools need to be fixed up, some schools need to be shut down. This sounds like a great argument for the money follows the child. So if I have 10 children in my school, I get $10,000. If I have 100 students in my school, I get $100,000. So that each child is operating with the same base. Sounds like a great plan. Yeah. Well, it's a great base when there's equity with regard to what that county can do above and beyond. So that's the state funding element. Not every county can provide a supplement that goes with those dollars because they don't have the tax base for it. And so your counties such as the large ones that I've already mentioned, they're able to offer 10, $15,000 supplements. This is above and beyond what the state gives you. And so they take that money and that becomes very attractive. So I can travel to Wake County every day and work in Wake County schools. and get paid an extra 10 to $15,000 a year because the county has a larger tax base and can offer a supplement to those teachers that are coming in there. But it also costs you another 10 or $15,000 to live in Wake County or Mecklenburg County or whatever. So it's really kind of sort of a wash, isn't it? I don't know that it's necessarily a wash because the teachers that leaving and that are going are also some of your better teachers too. So you end up with what's left over are the teachers that may or may not be the best caliber of teachers because it all falls into at the end of the day, you're trying to retain and recruit the very best and the dollars and cents, not everybody thinks like that. Well, I can go to Wake County. I can find a place to live that's not going to cost me an arm and a leg to make up for what I'm not getting in Cumberland. I could go to South Carolina. I could go to Virginia and work in either one of those states and work in a better school system with better benefits and better everything than I'd need to work here. And so we're losing teachers to the north and the south of us as well. So would it be ⁓ another advantageous for the money to follow the child so that the schools start competing instead of Mecklenburg school getting all this money just because they're Mecklenburg. If you start saying, if you're the child and they do it, find a way to do it equitably. don't know what that is, but whatever. And then you say, Hey, each student gets X amount of dollars. Now the schools start competing and you do get better schools. Cause I can go to here and have a student. If the people that care about the students go to the school, I've only got eight students. I can make a huge impact as a teacher. So what does that competition look like? When you say competing because the money follows the student. because right now, rich people, can choose and pick their schools that their children want to do. Right. Those of us that are less well off, we have to go to the public school, whatever's left. So now if I say each student in North Carolina, regardless of where the money comes from, so Mecklenburg gets a bonus of 15,000 per student. Well, maybe we don't pay them a thousand dollars. Maybe we would reduce that from the state and send it over here so that this student in Hoke County or some place that I wouldn't want to live out in the boondocks. I'm not a country folk, but. Now this student, nothing wrong with country folk, we need country folk. I just am not a country folk folk. But now this student gets $15,000. Now as a school, I want to, and it's attached to the child. Now as a parent, I can take this child and I can send them to the Catholic school, the Baptist school, the public school. Now the public schools have to perform better in order to get the money for that That sounds like vouchers to me. ⁓ my gosh, that's a great idea. What does that voucher mean? Don't mess with this educated man. He knows where you're getting at. Come on now. and Mr. Hatch and I are going to agree to disagree on our stance on vouchers. go ahead, Mr. Hatch, and fill in your take on her theory that basically, and I agree with, the money follows the kid makes all the schools compete for that education dollar. But what am I competing with? I'm already in the freaking hole. How am I able to compete? How do we get you? How do we put you on? not we rid of a lot of the administrators. Everybody says that everybody says get rid of the administrators. Okay. Not all of them. When you say administrator, what there needs to be a set number of I have X amount of students in the school. Then I have X amount of per Are you talking about principals and assistant principals? Oh, no, no, because that's just a principal and assistant, but above that they have all kinds of... leadership. Yes. Okay. So people that are, you know, over curriculum instruction and these... Okay. All of those positions. Not all of them. Right. No, no, no. But I do think that we are in the government a little top heavy. Why don't we look at saying, perhaps, reevaluating how many and how many folks we need and how much salaries we pay. Look from the top down and say, are we right sized? for what we're doing. But the problem is, is that the state and the feds continue to throw unfunded mandates at district leadership that trickles down to schools and ultimately into the classrooms. so teachers have all of this extra crap that they have to do that they didn't have to do 30 years ago, but they have to do now because it's all about the great almighty test. What are some examples of that? The testing, I know. Well, so everything you're going to have an organized lesson, which yes, you're to do lesson plans. You should do lesson plans. You should know what you're teaching. You should know how you're going to teach it. You should know how you're going to determine if the kids have learned what you've taught. You should be able to have a well-run classroom that is organized and is managed well. should be a positive emotional climate. These are all key elements in effective teaching and ensuring these things are happening. And so, yes, that's what a teacher should be doing. They give these benchmark tests. So now you have, I saw the eye roll over there. I totally agree with that eye roll. So now you give a benchmark test and you got to sit down and you got to look at how your kids did on the test that they could give a rat's ass about because the test has no meaning. It's just, what have you learned at this point? Does it count? Well, no, doesn't. Well, then I don't really give a. crap about it because it doesn't count for my grade. So now the teacher's battling with kids to take this thing seriously because it's a benchmark. It's trying to figure out what you've learned or what you know. So they got to disaggregate that data. Then they've got five or six kids in the classroom who are having mental health issues. They're having whatever crisis is going on because if you're in the middle school, everybody's got a crisis because it's just middle school. is. They're crazy. ⁓ And I'm not talking about just the kids. So you're dealing with all of these things and then, you know, then all of a sudden you've got to step to school for crisis intervention training because you got to know how to deal with that. Plus we're also going to do a shooter training as well. And we need to make sure that we know what to say and what not to say on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and TikTok. And we need to also make sure that we know how to use the new ⁓ student information system called Infinite Campus. which this is a program that you have to go in and put your grades in, your classes up. It's no longer the grade books like Squibb, you remember the grade books that the teachers would walk in and plop down and they'd have it paper clipped and they'd write the, no, they don't do paper grades anymore. I mean, some do just to have a paper record, but they've got to put all that into the system, into Infinite Campus. And Infinite Campus has to communicate with Canvas, which you may or may not have heard that got hacked last week and all that got, thrown out the window and I'm gonna say throughout the window, but it got shut down for a couple of hours probably and people were freaking out. What are we gonna do? Kids can't do their assignments because it's online. ⁓ and then that's a whole nother beast is getting kids to do their- thought technology made everything better. Technology has only added the ability to do more work. It has created a monster in and of itself. Yes, there are some, benefits to having a laptop so that if a kid is sick or they're out for a couple days or whatever, they can go online and they can pull their simons and get their simons done. They can submit it and turn it in. That's assuming that the teacher has it unlocked that the kid can go in and do it. That's assuming also that they've got it unlocked and the kid turns it in. Has internet that they're able to, yes. So these, these are all of the things. that are happening every single day. I've just tipped the three things that they have to do now that you did not have to do the first day you walked in as Tom Hatch, brand new teacher, computers, just a computer. That was one thing out. There was no computers in the classroom. There were no phones in the cloud. Like literally there was not even a classroom telephone. Right. when I was in, so the only way I got bothered is if somebody buzzed me over the intercom and I'm pointing up in the air like there's one here. remember that. I remember that as a report to the Peter Pethos, report to the principal's office. That's right. A times. Yeah. I was going to say though, in those squid books next to my name was stars always. I was going to say. Yeah, so technology was a huge, I mean now, I mean every piece of technology, whether it's a phone, it's a laptop, it's the computer, it's doing everything. We had, we had a computer lab. that we had a five and a half inch floppy disk with a program that allowed us to go in and key our grades in. It was so nice because I could go in and print off my roster and have my grades and everything done and it calculated it for me. It was very simplified and I liked that. See, think schools these days, should have, you know how they have the areas where there's no internet? They should have like a net over the schools where there's no internet. But in case of emergency, each classroom have like a... A thing where you can unlock the- Every classroom's got a phone in it already. ⁓ yeah. So if there's ever an emergency- They always tell us to kids. I'm like, they need my cell phone. Why? Because my mom is calling me. Your mom is micromanaging your life as a helicopter mom, as a snowplow mom, whatever your mom is. But if there's an emergency, call this school. We will get you out of the classroom and we'll get you to where you need to be. Right. So what, so that was technology was not there on day one. I just can't imagine a young Tom Hatch, you know, just right out of school, full of vigor and piss and vinegar. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but what were some other reporting things that you didn't have to do in, so when did you begin 94? 90. 90. Okay. So in 1990, what was some other reporting that we have to do now that you did not have back then? testing and data and all that stuff, breaking down your test scores and figuring out, you know, which kid in the classroom is, is a level one, two, three, four or five. What about unfunded mandate type stuff that you mentioned earlier? Like what's the problem? No, I didn't. When I was a teacher in the night, I didn't know. I was just showing up, working, teaching, having a blast. I would give notes, talk about history. We'd do notebook checks. We'd play review games. We would do testing and we'd start it all over the next week, whatever chapter it was. There was no, You weren't trying to, yes, the goal is to get through the book. I wasn't worried about trying to, you know, a standard course of study coming from the state of North Carolina. So do you think that the government is too much into the school classroom? The curriculum This, it all comes back to accountability, right? So because we did it that way for so long and government officials wanted to know, as well as probably to your point earlier, which school is the better school? So how do we assess that? What do we use to determine, and Chestnut's better than Lewis Chapel, two schools directly across the street from each other, both pull in the same demographic of students, so how do you determine which one's better and which one's not? You've gotta have some sort of metric that you use to do that. You know why? Because people want to know that their tax dollars are being used in a way. Can your child count change back if something is $4.86 and I can teach that in school anymore. We teach an algebra geometry trig and algebra too. when I give you $5.10 and you hand me back my 10 cents, I'm like, no, it was 85 cents. I want a quarter. Well, that goes back to testing. the testing criteria and even dialing, so I want to strike that. That goes back to, we've been teaching algebra in high schools for decades. We've been teaching math in school, obviously reading math, science, social studies, PE, the world around you, career, technical education. We got away from, what is it that I need to be successful in the world? I need to be able to read. I need to be able to think critically. The PIDEA seminar, which is what we did when we were at. pause what is Pidea because she's been beating me over the head and I have not done the Google. So Pidea is in essence and you do it you don't realize that you're doing it we're doing it right now. So we as older people can do it younger people cannot. Right all right so it's taking a situation we'll just say the Leandro case right so you do all the research you can on it and you have it all planned out on what your argument is going to be for Leandro or against Leandro you get a group of kids in a circle. Everybody has a little name tent They have their names on the name tent and there's there's sort of a Robert's Rules of Order that goes with the the seminar and you have good conversation and discord over You got to back what you're saying with facts. So I need you to go to line 27 here and where they say This is, and so yes, you back your opinion with facts or you take your facts and turn it into an opinion, however you want to do it, but you're thinking beyond the written word. You're trying to take it the next step. If you say this, okay, that's fine, but what's going to happen beyond doing that? Why is that important? Why this, why that? So you're really trying to answer the question, why in many instances with That's the way the Romans used to teach us. That's the old. Latin way of teaching was to become so that you can process things and interpret things and come up with your own ideas and you don't just spot it. read it on Google, so it must be true. Yeah, that's not true. I moved up to chat right now. I don't just Google things. ⁓ chat GPT, baby. I know it's your favorite thing. He lies also and hallucinates. So you can also tell it just pretend to be somebody different and it'll change. It'll absolutely change its standpoint. It's stuff. It's kind of it really is. ⁓ We've gotten so far away from Leandra. It's okay. No, this is a good conversation. all relates to Leandra. At the end of the day, what is a sound basic education? Exactly. And I just can't imagine that getting passed with that broad a language. It just seems crazy to me. Yeah. Because what the hell does any of that mean? I mean, sound basic education at Ancestor was a clean classroom. you know, qualified teachers. But why shouldn't that be already? Why do we have to legislate a clean classroom and an unqualified teacher? ⁓ Leandro, was it about systems? You can say, why do we have to legislate? But we did have to legislate just like we did in the sixties when they were saying separate but equal. We had to legislate that, no, there is no such thing as separate but equal. We're all together. We're all one. I mean, were we so egregiously not giving basic education to people that it required such a adjustment? I mean, were we that far away from? I don't know specifically in that regard. Cumberland County was one of the low-wealth counties that was part of the lawsuit in 94. And so again, when you're looking at each county's ability to handle deferred maintenance, to build an add-on to schools, to ensure that we can lower class sizes so that they're not busting at the seams, the state funding formula, which I do not know how that it's yes, it's based upon enrollment, but it's not that simple, right? That just sounds simple because that's how we need to try to explain it and understand it. can equate that, but there's more to it than that. There is some secret sauce in that algebraic formula they've come up with to allocate total number of, of teachers per County. And so why is it that one County is going to get, everybody's going to get it based upon the number of teachers or the number of students that they've got enrolled. But because again, I'm in a county that our tax base can't support anything additional, we're going to have bigger class sizes. Whereas Cumberland County can, as they did last year, they gave $103 million to ⁓ additional funds to ensure that the budget is met. Not every county is able to do that. And who knows, they're going to a workshop session next Thursday to see if they're going to be able to meet the needs of this year's budget requests. Haven't they already supplemented their requests? I believe they did right after they passed their budget. Then they asked the county for more money. Our Cumberland County School Board. Another five or six million. I don't know. I've not seen anything on that. Let's not say that it didn't happen, but I've not seen anything. And if they have, do you know why they did that? No. Because our state legislature couldn't come up with a freaking budget. Well, they did in the last 24 Yeah, whatever, Peter. Maybe. Come on, man. We're operating on, I mean- Two years ago. Yeah, so- two years old, I know. And because they're wanting to give teachers pay raises, you've got to be able to handle that supplement. if the supplement was less than- what you're budgeting for, then now the state is coming out and saying on average it's going to be an 8 % pay increase. That means Cumberland County School Board and the district leadership that came up with the budget did not take into account because they had no idea what the state was going to come back with. What they could do is say, well, it could be 6%, it could be 8%. We don't know what it's going to be. We're just going to take what we had last year and we're going to move forward with it this year. Who knows if they're even going to pass a budget or not? Well, and they do have to pass it and they're still, think. the. they have to, if they want to campaign. There you go. Um, and it is election year and that is probably part of the reason we're seeing a push to get it done in the short session. But, uh, I think, cause I've already seen posts from both sides already today. Um, the, the GOP side is talking about the average 8 % pay raise, taking the beginning teacher salary from 41,000 to 48, which is a 17 % increase. for first-year teachers, then they're ignoring the I don't know if they're ignoring it But I don't know if it's been any account for the compression of the teachers that have been with us for the veteran teachers 15 years They're the ones that are teaching these young whipper snappers how to teach and they're feeling some kind of way because they're not getting a nice bump and they're not retroacting what they should have gotten so they've operated two years under without another see History tells us they normally do right retroactive. I think the original agreement is not to be retroactive, but they haven't voted on it yet. So I'm hoping they're going to, they're talking about it. some sense and they're going to do what they normally do. Cause I think that was part of the reason they didn't see more protests is because we know what history tells us. They might not pass it, but they'll go back and give us our raise from back when. I'm not opposed to the teachers. protesting. I'm opposed to what they were doing. They weren't protesting for this. They made it about something else. That's what I was kind of fell off. Yeah. Some of that stuff. anyway, so did did Leandro actually help the schools? It certainly brought to the forefront, the inequities in our schools across the state. Um, and there was a, um, a commission report that came out in 2018, the Westwood report. that outlined basically an eight point plan on ways to improve across all school districts, ⁓ educational outcomes. But again, the state legislature is like, well, you can't tell us what to do, Mr. Supreme Court judge. And Supreme Court judge is like, but you're the lawmakers, your job is to uphold the laws and make sure that if it's outlined in the constitution, then it's your job to make sure that it's done right. And nope. So they just went back and forth for 30 plus years. And April, the Supreme court came back and it's like, nope, we're done. It's over with. So figure it out. I think our entire school system needs to be revised. I think we should be testing our students at about eight and 10 somewhere. They're about 11, 12 years old to find out what they're, they have a propensity for. And instead of having, you because you live here, you go to and chestnut. have a science or a STEM school and we have an arts school. So if you, as a student test high in mathematics, maybe you go to the STEM school. If you test high in whatever, then you go to that school. then the school start school of choice type of thing. It's not necessarily school. So that's what you're geared to. I do well with this. So I'm going to thrive in the school. I'm going to it's going to be easier for me and I'm going to be more excited because I know Joshua, he was extremely artistic and there was not, and he just could not get math and he would fail math every year and he would cry and it was like a traumatic thing. He didn't want to to school anymore because he couldn't get math. He got the basic math, the multiplications and things like that. But then they start on all this X equals and he's like, I don't know why letters are numbers. And he didn't understand because, but you hand him a piece of paper. have, beautiful artwork that my son did. mean, just like at 13 years old, I have an intricate piece of art that my son created that I'm like still in awe of this day. there been a school where he could have gone that way and maybe not been an art, maybe he ended up being an architect because the art of it or whatever. we start gearing our schools to our students and their likes and their propensity to perform. Wouldn't that be a cool idea? It would be a great idea. you know, back in the day when we were in school there, you had lots of auto shop, auto shop. I did it for the boys. didn't, I didn't do it for the car. It's okay. You know, probably look good in overalls. Yeah, we didn't have to wear overalls. So you, yes. And what's happened though is that we've gotten away from that because of the almighty test. We need to make sure that every kid can pass math three. So that's part of a graduation requirement that, that, It's called a math completer course. So that's math three. Math three is not algebra two. Math three is algebra, some algebra two. There's a lot of trig in there. There's some precalculus in that. So this, they call it the new math. What's been around for decades though, it's not algebra one geometry and algebra two and then precalculus trig anymore. It's this math one, which is a combination of algebra and geometry. Math two, which is geometry and algebra two and math three, which is algebra two and trig. And so to your point, I wasn't a good math kid. I barely got through algebra two in high school and that was 40 years ago. But yet we've just gotten worse. Like we've got to have these requirements to graduate. Okay, I get that. But why does it have to be this such a Is it making us think more critically because I'm taking geometry? I'm taking algebra too. Is it make me a critical thinker? think that's where we debate class will make you feel. Thank you. Hands on stuff is going to plumbing. and this leads me to this question. You know what we've been, I'm very much about the, budgets and the percentage increases. And that's how I, that's just how my brain is going to work to try to make sense of all this stuff. But what are the, what problems can't be fixed with money? in our school system. that's, think what you two were talking about was more of the soft skin. We need to prepare them for life. So what are problems that cannot be solved by me plunking down my credit card in the school system? I can solve, give me your credit card. can solve lots of ⁓ I'm sure you could. It's well, it's not the kids, it's the adults. You want to bring back spanking from these adults or something? I don't know about it. It's got, but you know. starting at home. Okay. that is just, you can pour all the money you want to in schools. That's not going to fix the issues where we know growing up and our parents knew growing up, if you got in trouble in school, you got your butt handed to you when you got home too. That's not the case anymore. Now, when you get in trouble at school, the teacher, the parents come to the school and want to know why you're disciplining Johnny. Exactly. And questioning the teacher's authority to talk to my child that way. And then My child is right. My child never, my child doesn't do this at home. ⁓ well look, we've actually got it on camera. Why is there cameras in the building? Okay. Okay. I only did that. I did that one time. I always took the teacher side except for one single solitary time. I did not take the teacher side. said, Joshua, you did the exact right thing. Bravo. We're going to Disneyland. There was a boy across the room. He was picking on Joshua. picking on Joshua and there was a teacher in there and he was in special needs because he was whatever, but she was pregnant and he was picking on Joshua, picking on Joshua. He got up from his class, his willing came around to my son and pushed my son. My son stood up and clocked him and knocked them unconscious. My son. mean, he did what he had to do, but now they both get suspended for that. Don't know. course. son got expensive, but the other boy did not. Yeah. Which is. Interesting they said it's never okay to put your hands on I said my son push your kid out of the seat Right then I mean I have my my rule is you don't I guess cuz he knocked him out So maybe that was it ⁓ then well, I said my son stopped another person from picking on my son again because you know what? Yeah, bullying is a major is that one thing that's changed maybe from 1990 to now the level of bullying No, it's or is it still pretty steady. It's pretty worse though because now like when we were students we would go home and the bullying would stop. Now we have social media and tech and phones and text messaging. way I can follow you and bully you on the way As a girl, did you have a purse full of notes? Oh my gosh, yes. And did you ever hear the slam book? Yes, I've heard of that. But we didn't, back then we did not participate in that, we had those. the notes. How many of those have you confiscated in your career? None. None? mean, cause you just, the kids aren't passing notes anymore. They do it all on their We had the little things like, you know, that you go like this. And then you open up and Laura looks ugly. Yeah, right. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's very, the level of bullying now bringing in video images and memes ⁓ and everything is just over the top. It's way more than these kids. neurologically are able to handle. That's why it's adult. Kids should not be exposed to social media at all. Adults have a hard enough time with it as well. ⁓ but kids, it's just, and some of them are relentless. They're absolutely relentless. And so those are some things that it doesn't matter, ⁓ how much money you pour into it. It's a people business at the end of the day. How can we get better people? We've got to ensure that they're walking into a situation where they've got, number one, they've got a strong leader in the building, starts at the top. You've got to have principals who know how to run a school, who know how to communicate effectively. And it's not just about knowing what you're saying, but it also is how you say it. You know, that, Yeah, I'm shooting from the hip right now with you guys, but professionally, I wouldn't be having conversations like this with staff and students and teachers because there's a way to talk to folk. There's a way to have a conversation where you're not pissing somebody off or you're not making somebody get in their feels about everything and that they're heard, they may not agree, but they need to know why we're doing what we're doing. And at the end of the day, We're here for the kids to do what's best for kids, not what's best for adults. If we're going to do what's best for kids, then I'm going to take care of you as your principal. I'm going to make sure that you have everything you need in your classroom, that you have support from my administrative team when it comes to discipline. You've got an honorary parent, come talk to me. Let me know what's going on. Let me offer you suggestions and advice on what to do. If you're going to handle it or you want me to handle it, you know, I hear you. understand what you're dealing with. It sucks sometimes. Yeah, there's things about everybody's job that sucks. ⁓ But that it starts at the top. And when you've got excellent leaders in the building that are that are working to do what's best for kids, they're listening to their teachers, they're listening to their parents, they're out in the community, they're involved. Then the pieces begin to fall together and you begin to see that ship sort of move in the right direction. ⁓ But again, because the people business, somebody Some people interview very well and their resumes look awesome and check in references for whatever reason they got glowing recommendations. And then you put them in XYZ school and you're like, what the hell just happened always give the problem child a great recommendation. I don't want them coming back. No, no here. Great. So this brings me to something, you know, this is all do me and glue me. What are we going to do with the schools? And you know, there's no money and there's not enough teachers, but we spoke about something before we talked about kind of the pattern for the element. How, how much enrollment in elementary is high, then it dips in that sixth, seventh, eighth grade, and then picks back up in high school. But positively, you had yourself gone through or maybe helped put together professional development. what, tell me about that, if for that middle school to kind of maybe re-energize that, to keep students in our system. Yeah. So to Peter's point, we're on average 22,000 kids are in our elementary schools. On average, we have about 11 to 12,000 kids in our middle schools. And then we pick back up about 15,000 in the high school. So we're a net loss of about 5,000 kids every year in the middle. Middle of education is extremely important. As when I was ⁓ a middle school teacher, ⁓ we had a emphasis, again, coming from the top at the district level was to ensure that we were going to provide a school that was safe, caring, and achieving. That we were addressing the social emotional needs of every kid in the building, making sure that our teachers understood that they're not working with little adults here. That they, some of them may look adultish, they're not. They're still kids. They're 12, 13, 14 year old and they're going through the hardest time in their life. Some of their parents are going through some of the hardest time of their life trying to raise that middle school kid. And we've gotten away from this because we're focusing on test scores and we're all about raising scores and raising achievement and getting growth and all of this that we're not child-centered anymore. We're putting 30 to 35 kids in a middle school classroom with one adult. And that adult, in an effort to try to manage that class, does things by reading and notes. If I'm the sage on the stage, then everybody else just needs to sit there and be quiet. So I can, it's quiet and we're either reading silently or we're doing busy work or you're copying notes while I jabber on for 45 minutes. We're not, we're not getting into the hands-on activities. We're, you know, we did something back in early 2000s with Bill Harrison was called creating great classrooms. So for a solid year, he pulled together educators from all corners of the county and what makes a great classroom. What does a great classroom look like? What does a great school look like? What we discovered is consistently, and it still holds true today, is that first and foremost, you have a positive emotional environment. So if you think of a square, that positive emotional environment, if this was our classroom, that square encompasses us. So you walk through the door, it's a positive emotional climate. What does that look like? Sometimes the teachers got to fake it till they make it. You know, we got to leave our baggage at the house. We can't be gossiping, we can't be acting some kind of way with our kids. It needs to be a positive motion, and we're gonna facilitate that starting with the teacher to the kids. That when the kid walks in, they know what they're gonna do today. What are we doing, Mr. Hutch? It's on the board, this is what we're doing today. Here's your agenda, here's the outline, here's what we're doing. And that I stick to it, that I don't get pulled off and chasing rabbits and squirrels all day long with this particular class because I've got adult ADD and I can't stay focused. that when a kid does work in the classroom, that it's rigorous, it's relevant, and that I'm giving you quick feedback, that a kid's not waiting for the results from the test that they took. was like, ever gonna change the grade of that test? We took it like three weeks ago. Yeah, I'm getting to it. Teachers now can put grades in and a parent has access to them instantaneously. So that means that I should be able to go in and see how my son is doing at any time. see what my daughter is not doing in this class over here and then I can email the teacher. The teacher can email me. So we're, we've gotten away from these core things. We just assume that everybody knows how to do that. And because we've got people coming into our schools that are not trained educators, they're not, they're not, they're organizationally challenged. They can't even open freaking email. They can't get, they've got their inbox looks like, sorry, if I'm offending you. their inbox looks like ⁓ it's 51,000 emails in it. How do you know where the new stuff is? It's come in from your principal or from a parent who's got a concern. That sounds to me like professional development and a personal presence. I mean, just taking it seriously. Yes. Now, and are you, is that maybe that some of the lateral entry folks are a little less acclimated to the? 100%. I mean, a lateral entry person walks in, they have, let's just, Do you have a college degree? I do. Okay, what's your degree in? Bachelor of Science, Business Administration. Business Administration. So you could walk in at Terry Sanford High School. Let's say I hired you. You could teach business management. So you could probably teach personal finance. Okay. So I interview you. I check your references. Everything checks out. You're good to go. You come in. You walk in the classroom. It's yours. Set it up. You get two days of teacher training, beginning teacher training, in which they give you a crash course. It's about 16 hours in two days of just, here's what you gotta do. They give you a crash course on how to get, oh, but you can't get into the computer system yet to put your grades in because the state of North Carolina doesn't have your user ID number issued to you yet. That usually happens if school starts in August. You probably won't get that until mid-September. So all the work that your kids are doing, it can't go into Infinite Campus because, that's one issue that you gotta deal with. Two, you gotta be able to go online and pull all of your coursework off so that you know what you're teaching. Three, you've never taught personal finance. You have no idea what the curriculum is that's surrounding personal finance. ⁓ and by the way, your kids are gonna take an exam at the end of the semester to see what you've done as a teacher for personal finance for them in the classroom. Do you even know what's on the test, let alone what you're teaching? Good luck, sir. ⁓ and I'm going to pair you up with Jeff Moorhead because he's a veteran teacher. Now he doesn't teach personal finance, but because he's in the CTE department and you guys seem to be, we're going to pair you up together and he's going to be your quote unquote mentor. And here's the keys to the castle and call me if you need me. And ⁓ you know, Talk to the people around you if you've got questions about anything that you don't understand. So two days and 16 hours, I'm what the state considers a lateral entry professional. Along with whatever training I'm going to give you at the school, because then you got to learn the Terry Sanford way or the Ann Chestnut way or the Reed Ross way of doing things. Because every school has their little caveats and a little different. Do you know who I have found that are the best teachers? Who's that? Older? women that stayed home with their kids that don't have the college degree. They have the patience, they have the time and they have the dedication to the younger students. one of the things that as, I'm actually looking for a job, everybody wants some kind of degree. Well, I was busy being a mom. I didn't have time to go to college. I was moming and you know what the best place for everybody to be my house. I had arts and crafts. because I hated my kids, but I wanted to keep them entertained. The first thing that when my kids were not entertained, they were interfering with whatever it was that I was were annoying. Right. Yeah. Kids are annoying. Oh my gosh. I had... Could you imagine being in the classroom with a bunch of annoying kids with no training at all? That's what I'm saying. Some of these people, you guys as educators, just because you have a degree doesn't make you, but some of these grandmas might be able to go in there and be like, Hey, we're going to learn about building Noah's arc. Or I'm saying that because whatever, but I mean, to me, I would sit down and be like, okay, let's talk about the, everybody's saying that we're going to debate tomorrow when we'd sit in a circle. hate these classrooms all in the road, but we sit in a circle so we can see everybody and interact and have conversation and like actually learn something. Well, why do you think that? Tell me about that. So Okay. So they give these guys 16 hours, two days and plus whatever training you get, a couple more days. A couple of days with me. Yeah. How many years degree education would you do people with teaching degrees as a four year degree minimum that they have to have? So, so we want them to accumulate all that four years in two days. Well, what's going to happen? Yeah. Yeah. Because in the four years, what are the things that you get that you learn as a teaching degree? Like what are some of the, is that where you learn how to run a classroom? Yeah. to hang out. How your political affiliation. How to teach your children how to protest. So what, so what, no. Yes. No, they take not a side in sixth grade and tell them that. That's not supposed to be happening. So what happens is, is that when you are at your junior year in, in whatever your track is, so I'll use me as an example, it was social studies, right? So was teaching history. Um, you, do site observations at a school, right? So I'll pick a, I chose Laney High School in Wilmington. So that's where I went and I sat and observed Mr. Lucas. He was an amazing history teacher. And so I had a minimal number of hours that I would go in and watch him teach his regular history classes and his AP history classes. And I was taking notes. Then I'd have to go back and present at my college class. what I'm seeing, what I'm learning, I'm keeping in general, blah, blah. Were you like a TA or were you you were just auditing the class? I'm sitting there watching. Okay. And then afterwards we would have a conversation. She's like, well, what did you see? What did you learn? You know, what were your, how would you handle this? What would you have done in this particular situation where you've got this kid acting out? How would you, how would you handle that? So you're, so you're actually kind of mentor relationship to begin with. Then the spring semester of your of your senior year, you actually go in and you begin to teach that class. you're actually able to, he would turn over to you a couple of regular classes. I didn't get the AP, so I got two regular classes that I taught. And I did the lesson plans. did the teaching, figure out what they learn, figure out what I'm going do if they don't learn it. What I'm going do with the ones that know it before I teach it, that whole thing. So I'm learning all this while he's in there watching me do it. And then he's giving me feedback at the end of it saying, yeah, you did a great job there. I probably would have done this. I would have handled this differently, blah, blah, blah. Then, so that's your preparation that you're getting. And then of course you're taking the praxis, which that is a national test that you have back in the day, it was the national teaching exam. This praxis day, I think it's actually even changed the name again. But this is, you've got to take this because it's on, it's got pedagogy, right? So what are the things that you have to do? to know to teach. And so then you take all of that along with your degree and now you've got student teaching experience. You know what a classroom looks like. You understand Infinite Campus. You understand the curriculum that you're coming into. You know what you're walking into when you come in. And you still get that same beginning teacher training that right. But now the lateral entry guys get. Right. But now you've got a frame of reference. Yeah. We're a lateral entry person. All they've got for their frame of reference. Well, when I was in school, this is how we did it. Right. And I'm trying to talk to this grandma over here who thinks that she's got a handle on it. I'm like, man, we can't do that. I appreciate your, but you can't say that in the classroom today. We just, you know. Yeah. That doesn't fly in 2026. So essentially, basically you're going to get a bachelor's degree, you're, it's really your third and fourth year. That's the, you're, you're getting boots on the ground. You your clinicals, you do your hands on stuff and you've been there and, then when you take that abbreviated 16 hours, you have a context for what the hell they're talking about. And me with my business degree, thinking I'm hot stuff, I'd be a little lost. You would definitely be lost. Well, as you mentioned, the pedagogy, you know, that's, that's the, manner of teaching. Isn't it? That's like, this is how you convey information. Exactly. And there's all, and there's, mean, there's just, there's literally a library full of ways to teach to the various kinds of learning that exist in every classroom. Okay. It's a lot. It is a lot. I'll stay in the business world, I think. But I would be happy if you knew anybody who needed some like business to talk to the kids. I was a hit. Carl Molnar had me there. nice. Yeah. Yeah. He called me in to talk about interviewing. think you were a hit because they're the same size. That's less. I probably guess a bit. I'm there. I'll be big with this once. But, ⁓ you know, I went in there and I was basically, look, this is my interview. Baldino's. This is what we do. Yeah. ⁓ don't bullshit me. Don't, don't tell me you're the best worker ever. Be honest. You know, well, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. But it was the candor. Right. And I had a good time doing that. I think the kids enjoy that too. But, ⁓ know, wherever I can help, you let me know. ⁓ so just about you, ⁓ what are you reading right now? What are you, what are you, I am reading a book, ⁓ the last dropout. Okay. And it is, ⁓ written by Bill Malkin who in the 1960s had this crazy idea of He's in Atlanta trying to get community support into schools because kids were dropping out of high school because they were becoming disillusioned with, they just didn't care. It's like, why? We're talking sixties here, y'all. This is not, this is not something that's new. has been around for decades. And so what he wanted to do was to remove any barrier. that would keep a kid at home, cause a kid not to be want to be in school. And usually that comes down to attendance. So what are the attendance barriers? ⁓ It could be there's something going on with mom or dad or grandma, grandpa at home. It could be a mental health issue. It could be a home issue. There could be an abuse issue. There could be, you know, I need you to work three days a week because Mama ain't me go eat. So you gonna have to go to that part-time job. So he, this crazy idea of bringing community support into the school, not just Hey, come on. Sounds like we, we, and this is this a whole other show we can talk about. Uh, it sounds like each student needs a case working social person, social worker, case workers, not every student, but not every, but well, mean, but look, there's enough talking about the school is the rubber meets the road where our government, state, whatever, services available, meet the child. Right. But we don't know, but the adults don't know how to get those. They don't, but then it's not the teacher's job to do all that. Right. But we expect them to do it. Well, yeah, see, we'll get there. So if we want to learn more about you or I was going to put your name and email or something on screen. So you want to share something I can put up there real quick? Oh my gosh. If you're on Facebook, people follow me on Facebook. I'm on Twitter. I'm on Instagram. Let me see here. You're going be running for school board again? Yes, I am going to be running for school board again. All right, so I'll put that up. ⁓ think my email is hold on one second. I'll give you my school board email account there. You can put that up there. So Laura's itching. got to see that. She's got another meeting online. Well, we'll wrap up without you. I hate seeing you. to have you as well. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. So is that the one? That's my hatch hatch for Boed. Boed three for Boed. Boed three at gmail.com. Yep. Hatch four. At least it's a Gmail address. I gotta say, I I'm still surprised when people give me like a Yahoo. Oh, I still see that. I'm like, really? Oh, how about AOL, baby? Or AOL. I still see the AOLs. I'm like, what is this? Or Hotmail. I'm like, gee, do you not answer email that often? So, so yeah, Tom, it's, it's a mess and we can't, we can't solve all this stuff with one budget or one thing. I mean, it's, you've been at this since 1990. Yeah. And I mean, What do you, what's one thing that you would want to do when you make it on school board? ⁓ my gosh magic wand and you could just make it work. It's going to have to be in our middle schools. That is an area, Peter, that is not being addressed as it should be. And it hasn't been since I was an administrator. Um, we, and it's, what's interesting is that that, that data that I've been harping on, I've done a couple of videos on it. I've talked about it and whatnot. Um, That was presented by the MGT consultants in December in a packet of material. It shows this enrollment line graph. And I'm just like, whoa, wait. Who asked for that study? that a school board? Okay. Our school board commissioned MGT to do the big study with regard to what are the facility needs in our district? What's the school facility usage in our district? What's the enrollment in our district? ⁓ You know, all of That's the report that I focused on the money, the capital stuff, but you're talking about the dip. The dip in the enrollment. Okay. So I'm watching a school board meeting and it's interesting because there, when it was being talked about that we are, we have a low, we have down 1200 kids. So everybody's like, Oh, Oh, that's, that's, that's, you know, that's, that's a whole high school. Where are those 1200 kids coming from? And I'm just going, why are you as a school board member asking that question when it was shared with you by the MGT consultants? It's in the middle school. We're down 1200 as a total district. But when you look at those enrollment numbers going all the way back to 2014, again, 22K in the elementaries. You dropped to 11 K in the middle and you're back up to 15 K in the high school. You seem to have a solution that was in process that somewhere along the way got dropped. Well, it dropped because of a new superintendent came along. So when Dr. Harrison left to go work at the state, a new superintendent, Dr. Till came on board and he saw the creating great classrooms, but ⁓ he wasn't convinced that that was going to improve test scores. So different focus, different superintendent. Yeah. Okay. Which is okay. That's it works. So one last question. If you want somebody, if you think somebody to be involved in knowledgeable, ⁓ what city board or commission or county board or commission, would you tell them to go to more than one meeting? What would be if they just moved here and, know, you, they should be involved. Well, you, I don't go to board meetings. I watch them online. Okay. Cause I just, one would you watch? Well, first off, if you're, if you're interested in anything you want to watch in the schools, you know, for me, it's going to be watch, go back and watch the videos. You can, you can get through some of the blah, blah, blah, and get to the meat of. of the agenda and see what's going on and listen to the conversation that board members are having with each other. They do, they're all divided up into different ⁓ auxiliary services, curriculum instruction, policy, personnel. ⁓ Those are individual ⁓ meetings that have four board members a part of. So some board members are on two or three of those little committees, as they call them. And those committees, have their meeting typically and it'll vary. Sometimes it's a Tuesday, sometimes it's a Thursday, depends on what they got going on. It's in the middle of the month, it's at the end of the month. It all kind of floats around. a full-time job whether people realize it or not. It is a full-time job. you don't want to watch those because that's the meat and potatoes, right? So the things that happen in committee meetings, the auxiliary committee meeting, which is all about the plant operations of the school district. ⁓ Personnel you're not gonna get a whole lot if you're trying to find out which principals getting fired or which teachers get kicked out Cuz it's all personal. It's gonna be private if you're interested in curriculum instruction There's a whole caveat on that if you're interested in policies, right? So what are the policies that are being created? What these are all things that the board committees look at and so and they each are Well YouTube not televised But they're videoed right there. They are televised live and then you stuff Yes. Okay. That's what that's. know about the main meeting. Right. So those are eight 30 in the morning on a Tuesday. You just have to go online and look and see when the next committee meeting is. Those are the better ones to go and watch. ⁓ cause the school board meeting at the second Tuesday of every month is at 6 PM. Those items that they do in committee become consent items. And it's just rubber stamped. So it's kind of like the decision's already been made in the committee meeting. Well, that's the public. It's the more popular public meeting that we put on the show that we're doing something. Right. What's the because we've had some contention on county commission. OK. For whatever reason, whatever. You just have a group of passionate people with different opinions. How's our school board getting along? Are they generally. finding consensus or you are we seeing a couple that are, my goodness. you know, you're, you're just leading me on here. You know, I mean, you know, is it, there is, there are, there's a voting block right now on our school board has made up a Mary Hills, Deanna Jones and tear Jordan. So there's three, um, Judy Musgrave was part of that voting block and she unfortunately is, on medical leave. She is, she literally had open heart surgery and is out. Not sure for how long. and we don't need to talk specific names. It's just look, do you feel like that they're working together? I'm going to give you specific names because people are to want it. People, you watch the meetings, you can see, you can see the voting block. Okay. Just like the school closure for Manchester and for, JW Kim. Okay. The voting block was there. It was five three. So you've got Greg, Susan, Dolores and Jackie Warner and Jacqueline Brown. That was a five that voted for school closure and then you've got dr. Hills, dr. Jordan and Miss Jones that voted against And it has been that it has been contentious that way for months I Will I will certainly say the part of that contention is transparency though There's a belief that they have been fully transparent when you've got some members of the board who believe that you have not been fully transparent, then that's a problem. ⁓ Things seem to come out of right field in February with regard to this MGT proposal. went from being a, some information about, you know, what we presented in December, that the board then jumped on it and they were trying to get ahead of it before county commissioners got on it. Is that when they announced the closures? And that's when they started announcing closures. and changes. And then that's when people got up in arms because the board was trying to get ahead of it before it got to county commissioners because county commissioners need to know what y'all gonna be asking for. it didn't really come out of nowhere. And the other thing I read some of the, ⁓ like the order of operation and how they were going to move the kids here and do the school. That just reading it made, made me dizzy. mean, that took a lot of planning to really logistically. So it couldn't have just been a shock. So you've got. So if you watch carefully the February, I think it's the February 9th meeting. ⁓ Dr. Jordan is on that auxiliary committee as well as Jacqueline Brown, Greg West and Susan Williams. make the auxiliary committee. The auxiliary committee is the committee that makes the decisions with regard to the recommendations coming to them from the county, from that MGT consulting firm. it, the way Dr. Jordan portrayed it, it sounded as if though she was left out of the conversation that was had about presenting this information on the ninth. Okay. And that Dr. Hales and ⁓ Ms. Jones seemed to be caught off guard that they were going full steam and actually we're, we're, moving forward with closure, recommending closure, recommending closure, recommending closure, blah, blah, blah. And they were like, Whoa, Whoa, Whoa. I thought we were meeting on the 26th to have this conversation a little further so that we could get our brains wrapped around. had the holidays, you had some snow days, there was some changes and then they just come out and like guns blazing. Here's what we're doing. Dr. Jordan is like, ⁓ when did y'all talk about this? Well, Jordan on that committee. Yes, she is. So was she not in the meeting? Apparently not. Okay. So see, because what that actually, that is somebody or, and this is my conflict with a lot of electeds, you need to know the office, what you're supposed to do. need to know your lane. And it sounds like we're not understanding the structure between committee and body as a whole. Or they met without her on purpose. don't know. It could have been. I mean, we don't know. don't, you know, I've, and I'm well, I've seen that before. That's why I say it could have been. I'm not from that group from other boards I've seen. They just leave somebody off the invite, which is wrong. Not cool. You can't play mean girl when you're on an elected official thing. But, ⁓ so, but to me again, it's, it's elected official, not really understanding what they don't know. And then you've got that going on as well. I mean, even as recently as last night's board meeting, I mean, it's just, it's, you've got some board members that you're just like, ⁓ this is. Well, think more difficult than the county commission board of education. think they all have, ⁓ people that enjoy the mic. ⁓ they like being called doctor and they don't cut anybody. So they're not really doctors. So I'll let that for somebody else. was dating one, one time she was a PhD and I said, you're not a doctor. Shut up. But, ⁓ she actually did clinicals and stuff. I was like, we'll call you doctor. It's okay. but, I definitely think we have more attention seekers and people that want the badge. They want the nameplate. Yeah. And they don't understand the job as a whole. So. Well, and that's, that's why I'm running. Yeah. Is because, and again, there are educators on that board. ⁓ Dr. Hales was a principal. Jackie Warner was a principal. Susan Williams was a teacher. Dolores Bell was a teacher. Jack and Brown was a teacher. ⁓ I think Dr. Jordan has some experience as well. I don't think it's necessarily in Cumberland County schools. I think it may be Dodds. So you've got six people that have got some experience. My whole platform is going to be, but let's talk about recent experience. I was going to say a hundred years ago in the single room school house they have, but I've heard that argument against the ones that are like, ⁓ I was a school principal. It's like, yeah, 150 years ago, whatever. ⁓ but then the other thing I've heard, when people are disparaging these folks is, they don't have kids in the, in the school system. So it's either they don't have kids or they taught a thousand years ago and they don't know anything about. today. Well, it's, it's hard to be on the school board and to be a parent and to work a full-time job. Greg West was that guy. Yeah. You know, he, he was a parent and he was from the professional sector and he had kids in the school district and for, you know, however many years. his kid just graduated last He was on the board for 20 years because he 20 years of kids in the school. so he brought that voice. But I don't think there's anybody there's folks on there with grandkids. Yeah You know, well, I don't know. It's just that's kind of a false qualification I think for somebody to be a good board member Yeah, I think if they're willing to speak up and do the homework and read stuff that makes them a good board member I don't need them to have taught I don't need them to have kids in the school system. I need them to understand what their job is. I'm I think for me And yes, it's a board you're going to get elected. So there's going to get people that are going to get elected that have absolutely zero classroom experience. But now you're making decisions about finances and policy and personnel. you don't even, you, you only experiences when you were a classroom. You have no contacts for the operation. And so I worry about that because then, I mean, I don't know, but boards that govern Doctors and lawyers aren't they made up of doctors and lawyers now. They're not elected positions They're appointed. So I guess that's the big difference ⁓ I don't want to get in the weeds Axel on that but I just think we need more people the school board may do this. So I'm gonna bring this up ⁓ I know there's one city commission, like the fast commission, the buses that they have dedicated spots on the board for actual users of the system. So does the school board have a similar, a parental whatever? I, I wonder if there's a benefit to that. Or I wonder if there, I'm sure there is a benefit, but I don't know if it's. again, I think that any changes that you would make to the board has to come through the legislature. So for me, One of the things that I was harping on back two years ago was it would be great if there were term limits for board members to keep it fresh. No more than two terms, but there are no term limits. And if you're going to get that, that's got to come from the legislature. any structure- So we can't add that. So I was just thinking that was a reason, that's one of the most reasonable things I've seen in my city was, yeah, why don't we involve the people that use it? Now it's not to say that the board could not appoint An ad hoc committee made up of community members that could advise the board of, of, of voting role. Correct. I still think there should be a mechanism. Cause look, we all have seen the, ⁓ Facebook groups, especially during COVID, they torched you guys. and they still torch you guys. But, ⁓ but where else was a parent supposed to speak out? Right. You know, I mean, the, the singular. school board meeting that I attended in person. The first 30 minutes was nothing but accolades for the administrators that Laura talked about, know, ⁓ so-and-so went to professional development. Yay. You know, there was one person that got an award and this guy was a custodian for being a great uncle Jim to the kids. But that was the only like accolade given publicly for anyone that interface with those kids. And that to me, was just like, well, are we here for ourselves or are here for the kids? And I appreciate teachers that want to get a master's and get a PhD. I appreciate wanting to further yourself. But is that all we're going to celebrate? Because we can't celebrate nothing else coming out of the classroom. Yeah. When did you go to that board meeting? How long ago was that? It's almost two years now. Okay. Yeah. Well, and again, it depends on, and I'm not going I have watched them since, but I've not gone back down there. But that was, it just, I was like- here. So they do some of that. Did you go to morning or night? was a night one. So the night one is less of that. The morning board meetings, they do committees is when they will recognize, they'll recognize kids, they'll recognize adults and things that they've got going on. Now this last board meeting was like a solid hour of recognizing kids. And they also recognize, you teams that have won a state championship or their runners up or they've won quiz bowl or they've won science Olympiad or whatever, they're invited to come in and be a part of that. they recognize their teachers. So yeah, they do that. We wanted to be kid-centric. That's right. I was in that one meeting. I'm like, what the hell? Yeah, but they do it. One of the clubs they wanted to go and show up in force over. I don't know. You guys are making them read some dirty books or something. don't know. Book banning. Yeah. Because because you mr. Hatch determined what the kids are gonna read. That's right. Yeah, it's nothing to do with the state It's just it's you. So yeah, but anyway Tom, I appreciate you being here. Of course I'm gonna take us out of here. So everybody watching. Thank you for joining us and we will see you Monday at 6 p.m. Have a good afternoon and