The Saga of Two Boards
Parents take note: your voting rights are being ignored. Sixty percent of the voters approved a school bond referendum for $68 million to repair and renovate Rosman Middle/High and Brevard High in 2018. Priorities included enhanced student safety and security at both schools, new high school classrooms in Rosman, and a new auxiliary gym and kitchen/cafeteria in Brevard. Five years later, none of that has happened.
Parents are frustrated. Students endure leaky roofs. Structures built decades ago are now dilapidated and crumbling. Teachers catch rainwater in trash cans. Brevard High students know it is safer to eat outside rather than in the cafeteria because of falling ceiling tiles.
County Commissioners
Transylvania County Kids Deserve Better
The inaction by our board of commissioners and board of education to fix our schools is unforgivable - and doesn’t make any sense! There are lots of questions, and no answers.
In North Carolina, county commissioners are responsible by law for the capital needs of their public schools. School boards do not have taxing authority, which limits their ability to build, renovate, or even complete maintenance on schools as needed. The Board of Commissioners controls the money and thus has final control over all major capital projects. Problems occur when the relationship between the two boards is adversarial rather than collaborative, as has been true in Transylvania County for many years. The involvement of county commissioners in school funding can lead to funding decisions based on political considerations rather than the needs of students, and the school board takes the blame.
The system lacks transparency, making it difficult for the public to understand how school funding decisions are made. While county commissioners have significant control over school funding, they are not directly accountable to voters for the performance of the schools.
The school board approved plans to fix our schools in 2017. In the 500 page report, a key aspect was student safety. Schools would have single points of entry with multiple layers of security. By reducing the number of entry points, our students would have a safe learning environment.
No one can deny that our children are living in dangerous times. As of December, more than 40,000 people have died from gun violence in the US this year, 1,306 of whom were teens and 276 were children. There have been 80 school shootings, more than in any year since 2008. School-shooting incidents have left at least 37 people dead and more than 88 injured. School shootings begin with the shooter entering the school. Is this not enough motivation for our elected leaders to do something?
An ad hoc group was set up to organize a maintenance study, a capital reserve study, and now a safety study. A new consulting firm was hired by the board of commissioners to detail and prioritize the projects that need to be addressed with our schools.
What was determined?
Roofs need to be replaced.
Heat and air conditioning units need to be retired.
Cleaner air would only happen when all the carpet is replaced with more suitable flooring.
These are the same recommendations as were made in the original study for the referendum.
This is a common pattern from our commissioners. Complete studies, take no action, share no results. Do they think the problems will go away?
Members of the ad hoc committee are hopeful the full reports will be ready by the end of January. Once the data is reviewed, options will be proposed as to how to proceed. The board of education will then present those choices to the county commissioners. If the commissioners agree, the school board can proceed with renovation and maintenance plans.
What happens if those original school bonds are not issued? Bonds are issued by the Local Government Commission, not the commissioners themselves. Keep in mind that the bonds have to be issued by November 2025, although the commissioners could ask the Local Government Commission for a 3-year extension.
The commissioners raised our taxes within months of the referendum passage.
Today, millions of dollars earmarked for schools are in the county coffers while our students and teachers sit in dilapidated, unsafe schools.
How are those tax funds being used?
Will county officials let the voters know how their taxes are renovating our schools?
A concerned citizen recently asked both the elected boards to have a joint town hall meeting to discuss the plans for the bond money and to share the results of the three current studies.
Local elections make a difference. Voters pick our commissioners and school board members.
If you want change, your vote impacts who will get us out of this insanity.
Albert Einstein may have said it best: Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
https://www.tcsnc.org/departments/business_services/school_bond_construction
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/05/mass-shootings-record-year
https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/22/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/116-people-died-gun-violence-day-us-year/story?id=97382759
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/einstein-s-parable-of-quantum-insanity/
