Rep. Ray Pickett Shouldn't Brag

 

So NC House Rep. Ray Pickett (R-Watauga) sent out a newsletter dated July 2nd in which he bragged that he helped pass the local bill, S 912, spinning that it's a great plan for enhanced democracy -- "ensure[s] that every resident's voice is heard in the election of local officials." S 912 is the attempt by Senator Ralph Hise to keep the voters of Watauga from rejecting by referendum his new gerrymander of both the County Commish and the Watauga School Board.

Pickett's bragging may be a trifle misplaced, since the destruction of the current non-partisan School Board by a gerrymander that will ensure it will become much more partisan and divided is widely hated by both Republicans and Democrats. The current School Board, which was not consulted nor warned that Hise was about to upend it, is composed of two Republicans, two Democrats, and one Unaffiliated member, and that body unanimously opposed the change.

Pickett doesn't vote in the best interests of the people of Watauga. He votes like Senator Hise tells him.

Questions To the Watauga School Board Candidates -- Asked and Answered

 

Michael Ackerman,
former candidate for Congress

On or about August 18, Jay Fenwick and the other candidates for the Watauga County Board of Education received a letter from Michael Ackerman with nine questions. He requested -- more like demanded really -- answers to those nine questions by a date certain (today, I think) and said he would publish all the answers in a letter to the editor to the local press.

Ackerman is a persistant activist for flipping education in Watauga Couty. He's a regular at public comment time in front of the school board. He was really stirred up about the mask mandate. He's perhaps most infamous for the "scare tactics" he pulled on the school board back in February. He took the podium and said: "With great sadness and resolve I do stand before you tonight and inform you that you have left us with no other option but to serve each of you with letters of intent to file claims against your surety bonds.”

It was all nonsense, of course. Which Jay Fenwick exposed here.

When Ackerman ran against Virginia Foxx in the Republican primary in May, he hosted frequent Facebook Live events and often referred to the Watauga School Board as his number one cause in politics. Why he was running against Foxx was never very clear.

Jay Fenwick answered Ackerman's nine questions, and they, along with the original questions, are reproduced verbatim below, preceded by the intercepted cover letter that Fenwick sent to Ackerman:

Mr. Ackerman,

I thank you for the opportunity to address these questions for you and others that may be interested. However, I have concerns about your plans for publication. You vaguely ask for answers to be short and concise in anticipation of publication restrictions. Yet most of these questions are quite politically charged which necessitates a fuller explanation. I think information for the electorate should be more expansive, not less. The electorate needs more depth of understanding to make these important decisions.

Respectfully, Jay Fenwick.

 -------------------------------------------------

Ackerman Q1) Based on what you now know, do you believe a forced mask mandate was the right decision for our students?

Fenwick

I stand by my decisions on requiring masks during the COVID outbreak for the safety of our students, our employees, the families of our students and employees, and the community at large. My decisions were based on the advice and recommendations of our national, state, and local health professionals. I am grateful that we did not have any school closures during the two full years of COVID. We did not have any outbreak clusters in schools during the very contagious times when masks were being worn. We did not have any student or staff members die due to COVID, and had only a very few cases that might be considered severe. Many school districts that made decisions different than ours unfortunately did suffer through some of these painful consequences.

Ackerman Q2) Would you support a forced mask mandate for our students in the future?  If yes, briefly describe under what circumstances.

As in the past, I would be guided primarily by the advice and recommendations of the appropriate medical professionals. I continue to believe that mask wearing is an effective layer of protection against transmission of sickness. If another new, highly contagious virus were to present itself, or another virulent strain of an existing virus, then I could foresee needing this layer of protection again. 

Ackerman Q3) We have seen a growing number of educators in this country feeling it necessary to discuss intimate details of their personal lives with their students.  Is this something you support, or would you rather see educators maintain a strictly professional relationship with their students?

All of us are of course aware that personal interaction cannot cross the line into inappropriate intimacy. WCS has clear policies on staff-student relations and the professionalism expected. Principals and directors review these policies with staff each year. However, a professional relationship can also be a personal one; these are not mutually exclusive. I think it has always been a strength of WCS that our teachers care so deeply about their students. They attend student sporting events, artistic performances, etc. They laugh, cry, and celebrate with their students. I think most of our teachers would say that they love their students like their own children.

Ackerman Q4) Do you support the teaching of any kind of sexuality (hetero, homo, bi,or trans) to students preK-6th grade?

None of these words appear in any state curriculum standard or related curriculum documents such as planning guides. We expect our teachers to follow the state's curriculum standards and I believe that they do because they are education professionals.

Ackerman Q5) Do you support teaching sexuality outside of the realm of biological health education for grades 7-8?

I do not see any reason for teaching sexuality outside of the Healthful Living curriculum. I am not aware of any curriculum standards outside of Healthful Living that cover topics related to sexuality.

Ackerman Q6) The American Federation of Teachers has created a "card" to help educators keep secrets from the parents of their students regarding gender identity.  Is this something you support?  https://www.foxnews.com/media/aft-promotes-method-teachers-help-kids-change-pronouns-without-parents-knowing

I am not aware of any use of a "card" such as this in our schools. But to answer your question I did some research into this, and believe the question misrepresents the facts involved. This "card" is more fully identified as a "student information card." It was not created to help teachers keep secrets from parents. It was created as a resource for teachers' professional consideration as they begin a new school year. High quality teaching and learning requires a relationship of trust. To learn effectively, students must feel safe to make mistakes. Building this relationship of trust takes time, and it begins on day 1. Like it or not, students may tell their friends or teachers things that they have not yet shared with their families. Teachers and counselors are professionals and know how to help students think about challenging personal issues and guiding them to involve and inform their families themselves. And obviously serious matters would be brought to the parents attention immediately. 

Ackerman Q7) There has been discussion at the federal level to tie certain federal funds for public schools to CRT/Gender Identity curriculum.  Would you accept those funds for the district with those stipulations, or would you refuse those funds?

This question also misrepresents the facts. The federal Department of Education (DOE) does not dictate or mandate curriculum, and in fact is barred by statute from doing so. What you are likely referring to is an event in the spring of 2021 when the DOE proposed, for public comment, two priorities for history and civics education. Identifying these as priorities would later enable grant programs to support those areas. In the proposal, there were a couple of works provided as examples that have come under scrutiny including "The 1619 Project." These works were not mandated and the priorities themselves were not any type of mandate or curriculum. Regarding strings attached to funding, we are always open to consideration of funding options outside of the normal state and local allocation processes. But we do scrutinize those opportunities and have refused some offered funds due to potential questions of appropriateness. 

Ackerman Q8) Would you support and implement live streaming of all school board meetings so that parents who cannot attend can at least observe the meetings?

I am open to conversation on this issue. 

Ackerman Q9) Would you support and implement some sort of vehicle to allow parents more participation in school board meetings, or create some sort of public forums on a regular basis where parents could ask the board specific questions and get answers?

This past year the board has listened to many people during the public comment portion of its monthly meeting. Being responsive to some of those requests, we moved the public comment forward in the agenda and highlighted specific topics as separate agenda items. Our current meeting rules allow 3 minutes for speakers, but this has not quite been enough time for many speakers. I would support increasing the speaker's time to provide a greater opportunity for them to convey their full thoughts. And, I would support a small panel of board members and administrators to visit schools for informal listening sessions between the regular board meetings. As we face controversial topics we need to hear from as wide a cross-section of people as we can, and the monthly Monday meeting at the board office may be inconvenient for many.

-- 

Jay Fenwick
Member, Watauga Board of Education

Here's Another Reason We Have a Dangerous Shortage of Qualified Teachers

 

You know there's a critical teacher shortage in North Carolina and elsewhere across the country, right? As of last week, Wake County (Raleigh) alone had over 400 teacher vacancies, with school about to start. The vacancies are not so bad in Watauga (though I haven't gotten hard numbers yet), but if you're looking for another reason for why people are leaving the profession, or never entering it at all, though they trained for it, look no further than the continuing crusade against public education carried out by smug ideologues like Dr. Mark A. Murphy, Ph.D., of Blowing Rock.

He published another letter yesterday in the High Country Press, his second on the topic, alleging what amounts to a conspiracy to induce "woke indoctrination" into Watauga County schools "by explicitly covering political topics" -- he calls them political, as the clearest indication of his own bent attitudes -- to address problems such as youth mental health, suicide prevention, substance abuse, sexual abuse prevention, sex trafficking prevention, and teenage dating violence.

So, according to Dr. Murphy, it's "political" to minister to a brown child being bullied, or to a queer kid being bullied, or to a young girl being urged into premature sexual activity, or to attempt behavioral remediation for those doing the bullying and the sexual forcing, and to open their minds to treating everyone like a fellow human being who can be hurt and even destroyed by prejudices and by a callous disregard. Lord! Alert the authorities!

According to Murphy, it amounts to an actual conspiracy: He says that the Watauga County Board of Education (and others higher up) "quietly initiated" (the sneaky bastards!) "woke" teaching methods and materials "under the guise" of recovering from the stress of the pandemic. Sounds like a conspiracy to me. Where I think most parents tend to think the best of a school board trying to do their best for the students, Dr. Murphy insists they're doing their worst and doing it secretly.

Murphy's letters get longer, and as his verbiage gets more elaborate, his complete absence of evidence becomes more glaring: "But many parents will find some parts of these plans highly objectionable because they support some parts of the radical political agenda." Good lord! Pile the trigger word radical on top of breathtaking vagueness -- "some parts of these plans," "some parts of the radical political agenda" -- without offering ever a single example of what this means, and you've landed in the sump of knee-jerk reactionary politics of the Trump era.

Murphy is evidently laying track for the hoped-for takeover of the school board this November by a Republican team of far different ambitions. Murphy, apparently, is not the parent of a school-age kid. He's a 68-year-old retiree who, as far as I can tell, only first voted in this county in the May primary this year. But he's all in as an enemy of teaching tolerance and fellow-feeling in our public schools.

Watauga School Board Member Jay Fenwick Answers Dr. Mark Murphy

 

Editor's Note: On August 10th, the High Country Press published a letter to the editor from Mark A. Murphy Ph.D. alleging that "woke" philosophy is being spread by Watauga County teachers. Murphy's letter was subsequently discussed on this site.

Response to Dr. Murphy [intercepted email]

Dear Editor,
I am compelled to respond to Dr. Mark Murphy's letter published in the High Country Press on Aug 10, 2022. I am a member of the Watauga Board of Education, but this is my personal response; I do not speak on behalf of the board.

In his letter, Mr. Murphy advances a number of general fears, primarily voiced in more extremist information-entertainment venues, concerning "woke political indoctrination and/or critical race theory and identity politics." Allow me to provide some factual context so that your readers have specific information to make their own judgments.

On April 11th, Dr. Murphy and another person spoke to the Watauga Board of Education during public comment expressing the same fears shared in his letter. Dr. Murphy also made formal Freedom of Information Act requests on April 11th and June 3rd on these same matters. There were clarification emails from Dr. Murphy on April 26th and June 23rd. In all instances, Dr. Murphy was acknowledged and provided responses to his requests within a few days by the Watauga County Schools administration.

After the April meeting, I received relevant materials from the superintendent and visited classrooms in each of our schools. It is my opinion that our teachers are professionally following instructional standards in content selection and delivery. Dr. Murphy identified NewsELA as a particular instructional resource of concern. NewsELA provides a very large number of resources across a wide range of topics, authors, and genres. The materials are well vetted as they are used in 90% of schools, by 2 million teachers and 25 million students nationwide, including many home, private, and charter schools. The NewsELA website is very transparent about their material selection process. And it’s important to remember that NewsELA is not a curriculum but just an instructional supplement.

Watauga County Schools welcomes any parent to speak with their child’s teacher if they have any concerns at all about what their child is learning. The strong and personal relationships between our schools and our families have always been and remain today an important part of the backbone of our community. Our teachers are education professionals. They have earned and deserve our respect and trust.

Lastly, while Dr. Murphy may lament that our schools teach more than “the three Rs,” we are required by the NC Standard Course of Study to teach 12 content areas that also include Science, Arts, Career Technical subjects, World Languages, and Healthful Living among others.

Sincerely,
Jay Fenwick
Boone, NC

 

Watauga County Teachers Attacked for Teaching "Woke" Lit

 

I might appreciate the warning letter from one Mark A. Murphy that was published in High Country Press, raising the prospect that "Woke Political Indoctrination" has infiltrated Watauga County Public Schools and is on the verge of making our children culturally and racially tolerant. I might appreciate it, but I don't, because it looks like pure unsubstantiated provocation. (And I get the Trumpist implication of capitalizing those words, Woke Political Indoctrination, like it's on a par with Marxism and -- eek! -- Unitarianism.)

Mark A. Murphy trails some high educational credentials after his signed name -- Ph.D. and J.D. -- but apparently missed class the day they taught using examples to make your argument clear. Murphy claims he's found multiple instances in on-line educational resources used by Watauga County teachers -- "...it is clear that the Newsela materials are filled with the concepts and language of Critical Race Theory, racial and sexual Identity Politics, and 'woke' political indoctrination" -- and I would surely like to see an example of what he's talking about. Murphy offers nary an example, not a single quote of this "wokeness" that alarms him.

No, he's throwing around hard-right lingo like a drunk throws chairs in a Saturday night dive-bar. And trying to stir up parental resentfulness, anger, and fear just for fun, apparently, or out of boredom. If he had an actual case to make, let him make it in clear terms with examples, and we'll make up our own minds.

The Right-Wing Attempt To Take Over the School Board

 

It's happening all over North Carolina let alone the rest of the nation -- the Trumpist movement to take over school boards and hound out "cultural diversity" or diversity of any kind (among other things). It's happening in Watauga County, which is why the School Board primary on May 17 is so crucial (early voting starts on Thursday of this week).

What follows is borrowed from PamsPicks.net (with permission), an extensive write-up of the issues now boiling inside public education and information on the insurgent right-wing candidates running against the school board incumbents in Watauga. PamsPicks uses lots of embedded links, and I haven't checked all of them to see that they're working, but you can always go to the link above if having trouble.

. . . . . . .

“Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people”
― Heinrich Heine

Welcome to this year’s School Board Culture Wars, where radicalized adults have whipped themselves into a frenzy first over their children’s being required to mask in classrooms during a pandemic and onward now into an assault on LGBTQ+, communities of color, local teachers, school administrators, and anyone else they view as “the other.”

The “non-others” believe they can only define and uplift their own human value by defining and destroying the human value of others. They promote deadly conspiracy theories and sling arrows at anything science-based. They’ve declared wholesale war on public schools. They use social media and fear-mongering to push for laws to ban books that run counter to their righteous view of the world and want to censor teachers or fire them if they dare to push back.

The “non-others” call those who will not walk their straight line and adhere to their world view “woke” as if being culturally “asleep” is far superior (or at least more convenient to their cause). They are co-opted and riled up by dark money, rich donors, and advocacy groups like No Left Turn. They shake with fear and anger about indoctrination from classic books like “To Kill A Mockingbird,” “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,”and “Of Mice and Men” — in fact any and all books about the stories and lives of “the others.”

“We have culture war battles over school closures, mask mandates, education about race and LGBTQ issues. You’ve got discussions around masks, age-appropriate books, transgender bathrooms, and it drives out discussions about hiring teachers, attracting talent, expending capital investments on infrastructure. We’re distracted from the real issues going on.”

We’ve been here before.

In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan freaked out because they believed recent immigrants to the United states were threatening “traditional American values” by their very presence. It opposed labor unions, immigration, and foreign entanglements such as the League of Nations. But the KKK was especially hostile to blacks, Catholics, and Jewish people.

The Klan exerted significant influence and policed their communities, including local schools:

“They might object to a theater showing “immoral” pictures or warn an alleged wife beater to desist or pressure a school committee to crack down on a 'liberal' teacher or ban a particular book. Those who joined the Loyalty Leagues and Defense Societies used that position to bully immigrants or censure liberal ministers or get rid of teachers or ban books or movies.”

The John Birch Society followed suit in the 1950s, deciding that if they couldn’t win on the national level to rid the world of so-called Communists, they would go grassroots, including by disrupting school board meetings.

So now here we are again. School board outbursts ending in chaos and threats. School board members in Virginia receiving death threats and protesters in San Diego County pushing their way into a school board meeting and declaring themselves the newly-elected board. Last Fall, nine titles were removed from the libraries of four high schools in Utah’s Canyons School District. Just last year, the Texas Senate voted to remove the requirement in a competing House bill for public school teachers to teach that the Ku Klux Klan is “morally wrong.”

In fact, the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom identified 330 incidents of book censorship last fall alone, mostly books about LGBTQ people and race and racism.

The arguments about CRT appear on the surface to take new ground but are specious, and “mirror a 1920s-era assault on teaching evolution in US universities.“ Ramping up that argument while simultaneously advocating for getting back to the basics of “reading, writing and arithmetic,” Florida’s education commissioner just announced that roughly 7 in 10 of the math textbooks that were submitted for students in grades kindergarten through 5th grade would no longer meet State requirements. And Florida Governor DeSantis has taken on Disney because they wouldn’t sign on to his “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which seeks to ban discussion of gender and sexuality among young students.

Watauga County Schools find themselves in the Culture Wars Crosshairs this election season too.

There are 7 candidates running for Watauga County Board of Education in this primary. You may vote for 3.

Three candidates are incumbents (Childers, Fenwick, Ashcraft) and have years of experience in working with Watauga schools both professionally and on a volunteer basis. All three answered the Pam’s Picks questionnaire in full, and all three presented informed and reasoned answers to diverse questions. All three cited their pride that Watauga County schools rank at the top of the heap statewide in student performance and academics. When asked what they thought about banning books about LGBTQ+ lives and/or history books that address racism from the schools, all three cited strong procedures that are already in place to screen proper reading for different ages and that if a parent wishes to excuse his or her child from reading a book that is personally objectionable, a designated alternative is offered.
You can read their responses to the questionnaire in their entirety and unedited here:

Gary Childers

Jay Fenwick

Marshall Ashcraft

The other four candidates (Cole, Cutlip, Hanifan, Kerley) did not respond to the Pam’s Picks questionnaire, but I hunted down what was available about their platforms and have excerpted them below. You can read complete Watauga Board of Education candidate profiles HERE.

According to his website, Cole’s priorities are to fight against “pornography” in High School level books, teachers’ indoctrination of students, “medical freedom,” to insist that local officials release funding for safety that he alleges is being withheld for political reasons, to stop bullying, and for all of us to come together around these issues.

Cutlip has no platform I can find except a flyer that touts “Back to Basics,” Parents’ rights, traditional values, and transparency.



Hanifan makes no bones about her platform and has, in fact, presented her full platform in her “Mama Bear Manual.” She aspires to protect children from harmful (and frequently disguised) indoctrination and school curriculum. She asserts that Planned Parenthood, the Human Rights Campaign, the Southern Poverty Law Center, various LGBT Activist groups, and Equality NC (among others) are “pumping” harmful curriculum into school children. She believes that teachers are trained to discuss and promote sexual orientation and gender identity. She warns that the terms used in CRT (Critical Race Theory) like “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” might lead to “students lobbying for things like unionization of workers, transgender rights, or taking part in Black Lives Matter protests.”

And check this out, under “Examples of CRT in Watauga Schools,” wherein Hanifan accuses a Watauga teacher of using “Ain’t I a Woman” by Sojourner Truth as “a woke propaganda tool,” a newly hired school librarian of “pushing her personal ideas and agenda relating to her personal background and identity, and allegations of majority racism, genocides, etc.,” and a Watauga High School Social Studies teacher of “teaching of blatantly racist and sexist propaganda.”

Kerley’s Facebook page was all I could find about his campaign, and reveals very little of a platform. Once prompted by questions from a reader, however, he said he was aware of “hot topics” about COVID, CRT and Gender identify (sic). In short, he does not favor mask mandates, is “still trying to fully understand CRT,” and says he will fight to ensure that school bathrooms are clearly marked as to gender and that he will fight to keep them that way.

So there you have it. Don’t forget to vote. And be sure to take an “Other” with you.

Copyright 2022 - pamspicks.net

Forsyth County Copying Watauga, In a Bad Way

 

The disruption that went down at the Valentine Day's meeting of the Watauga County School Board (described by school board member Jay Fenwick here) just got a copycat do-over in front of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board on Tuesday.

One big difference: Whereas the men who rushed the rostrum in Watauga got to stay and dole out their paper accusations to the school board members, the man who "broke the barrier" in Winston-Salem found his face on the floor in a scuffle with security.

On the surface, the commotion was all about mask mandates in public schools (but hold on for the rest of the story):

The tone and tenor of the comments took an unusual, and ultimately disruptive turn, when two speakers, first, Regina Garner and then Deborah Tuttle, began reading from a script that attempted to make a case that the school board has failed to uphold the state and federal constitutions by enforcing a mandate, in this case a mask mandate.

Among other issues, they falsely accused the school board of practicing medicine without a license, committing child abuse because of masking and violating the state’s obscenity law by keeping in school libraries materials “with obscene and inappropriate images.”

Tuttle told the school board that unless these violations were corrected in 72 hours, the school board would be receiving letters of intent to file a claim against the school district’s insurance carrier, Liberty Mutual.

The scene was straight from the playbook of Bonds for the Win, a group that is urging parents and far-right activists to serve claims against school districts, claiming they have broken laws. Bonds for the Win has a website that includes scripts on how to file claims in several states, including North Carolina.

You noticed the demand slipped in there -- right? -- that certain books must be removed or censored from school libraries, which is becoming much more the marquee issue among these disruptors as masking mandates are lifted. The ultimatum that the school board must comply with demands within 72 hours is a curious echo of what was demanded of Watauga board members.

It's a movement, all right, the natural evolution of bullying Trumpism.

Watauga School Board Makes Masks Optional

 

Following the commendation of Governor Roy Cooper, the Watauga County School Board has voted 5-0 to make masks optional for students and teachers in our public schools.

The Rest of the Story -- The Watauga School Board Meeting on Feb. 14

 

Scare tactics

by Jay Fenwick, 19 Feb 2022

Previously I reported to you about the February 14, 2022, Watauga Board of Education meeting. That report covered one agenda item only, our mask policy. But the February 14th meeting offered much more excitement.

(I repeat the "disclaimer" here that these are my personal opinions and recollections. My purpose is simply to share a fuller description of events to keep you informed of what is happening at YOUR school board meetings.) 

The public comment portion of the meeting always begins with the board chair reminding speakers of the rules of etiquette that are typical at public meetings. Speakers are allowed 3 minutes, are expected to be courteous in their language, are to speak to the board as a whole, and should not expect back-and-forth conversation with the board. 

Six persons signed up to speak to the board, but Jennifer Hanifan (who has filed to run for the Board of Education) declined when her name was called. The first four speakers all asked to end the mask mandate and provided their unique personal perspectives. I carefully listen to all of our public speakers. I often take notes on what they say. Some people think the board is being disrespectful or ignoring the voices of the speakers. It is unfortunate that they just can not accept that one can truly listen to them but then choose not to do what they ask. Maybe they haven't raised teenagers yet?

Michael Ackerman,
Candidate for Congress

But the drama was yet to come. The last speaker, Mr. Michael Ackerman, has addressed the board each month since September. In addition, there has been voluminous communication with him via email between meetings. And it should be noted that Mr. Ackerman has organized a campaign for U.S. Congress that hosts frequent Facebook Live events, often referring to the Watauga School Board.

Both Superintendent Scott Elliott and the board attorney have previously addressed the meeting about a recent conspiracy theory surrounding "surety bonds," involving a website called BondsForTheWin.com. They both explained that NC law does not require surety bonds for school board members. And they encouraged school board members not to be swayed by tactics akin to bullying.

Mr. Ackerman again chastised the board for what he sees as its disrespect for the voices wanting an end to the mask mandate. He also again chastised the board for not altering the format of its public comment. He then quoted from the Preamble of the Declaration of Independence. I do agree with him that this is amazing and powerful language: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."

Ackerman then said, "With great sadness and resolve I do stand before you tonight and inform you that you have left us with no other option but to serve each of you with letters of intent to file claims against your surety bonds.”

On that choreographed cue, two men stood up in the audience, flanked Mr. Ackerman at the podium, and then walked toward the board members with stacks of large manilla envelopes. Superintendent Elliott, the board attorney, and two deputies began to loudly request that the men halt. It's not a large room. The men ignored the admonitions and were already in front of the board members. They began rifling through their packets of envelopes trying to match up the board member nameplates with the labels on the envelopes they had. In the end, they "served" 8 persons: each board member, the Superintendent, the Assistant Superintendent, and the Finance Director. Board members did not open the envelopes and simply handed them to the attorney.

Mr. Ackerman concluded his remarks stating that this was not a legal action but an insurance claim action, and that we had 72 hours to comply.

What exactly was in the envelopes? I can only tell you what was in the packet that I received but am confident that the others were identical. My packet contained three bundles of documents. Each bundle was from a different person making a claim, and each claim consisted of two parts, an 8-page "Declaration of Fact" and about 40 pages of materials that Superintendent Elliott had submitted in response to a public information request for surety bonds, policies related to insurance and bonding, and oaths of office.

The language in the "Declaration" is legal-sounding:

• "...expressed in the form of an obligation containing my wet ink autograph that I have personal knowledge of and asseverate the following...."
• "...I, a man, ------------- claim ------------------ as my offspring.
  I, a man, ------------- claim my body, information, and genetic material, including my offspring, are my Property."
• "...I, a man, ---------------- retain my right to decline all attempts to access, influence, and or otherwise alter any of my Property, my God given biological material, my biological systems, and or that of my minor offspring."

A section boldly labeled "Direct and Constructive Notice" contains numerous legal citations that supposedly demonstrate that school board members have stepped outside their oaths and responsibilities, violated state and federal law and the Constitution itself with our mask policy. 

It demands that the school board cease and desist within 72 hours forced mask wearing, social distancing, COVID testing. It also includes a clause demanding the immediate removal of all materials (books, media, lesson plans, etc.) that promote a variety of things like "tribalism within our nation" and "deconstruction of the nuclear family," among others. 

It then says that each board member must rebut these claims within 10 days. (What happened to 72 hours?) And it concludes with a reminder of my obligation to a timely response: "Silence will result in your acquiescence and tacit agreement."

All three claims are signed and then notarized by school board candidate Jennifer Hanifan.

NC DHHS has announced a big change in their COVID guidance, and the CDC has hinted at some big changes coming in their guidance. I see another school board meeting already on the calendar.

This local newspaper article captures a good bit of the public comment portion of the Feb 14th meeting.

https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/local/board-of-ed-splits-3-2-keeps-masking-in-place-for-now/article_82d49afc-0209-5f1f-a9fe-d421ed79f3a9.html

Jay Fenwick is a member of the Watauga County Board of Education

Watauga School Board Member Fenwick Defends His Vote on Masking Policy

 

The Rationale Behind My February Masking Vote

by Jay Fenwick, 17 Feb 2022

Prologue

It’s been my honor to serve Watauga County as a member of its Board of Education for 7 years. Over the past 7 months or so there have been several passionate speeches made to the board during its monthly meeting public comment. More recently, a group of community members focused on eliminating the school mask mandate has become larger and more vocal, even at times needing to be gaveled to order by the board chair.

I have been asked by several people over the past few months to share what is happening in our meetings. Of course the meetings are open to the public, but I realize that many people will be unable to attend. The local newspaper often reports on key decisions but has certain space and word count limitations. So, I have decided to simply share some of what has been happening in recent meetings along with a fuller context.

All of these words are my sole, individual opinion based on my own personal recollection, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other board members or the board as a whole.

There is a lot going on with these decisions, folks. Perhaps I am a pedantic professor, but I want to share a fuller context. You can skim or skip as you wish but I will endeavor to provide a thorough summary. And yes, even this long report, is still just a summary; and furthermore, this is just one issue with other issues to be reported in upcoming letters.

“I Vote No”

The NC Legislature passed a law at the end of the summer requiring local boards of education to act each month on their masking policy. A quick recap of how we got here. At its July 2021 meeting the board voted 3-2 to make masks optional in our schools (I was in the minority). Within two weeks the Delta variant had begun ravaging our local community; and, I received well over 100 emails from both sides of the issue although a large majority were in favor of masking. At its August meeting just prior to the opening of school for the year, the board voted unanimously to require mask wearing indoors. And each month from September to January we have voted unanimously to reaffirm that policy. Also during this time we have heard from an increasing number of persons during the public comment portion of our meetings, and most of these are speaking against the masking requirement.

Our February meeting was this past Monday evening, February 14th. Of course, at this moment the Omicron surge is falling fast and several governors around the country have announced ends to statewide mask mandates. In addition, the NC DHHS updated their guidance to effectively end contact tracing and quarantines of any close contacts on Feb 21. With these shifts in the news there was great anticipation for an elimination of our school mask mandate from the about two dozen attendees. After the usual thorough Covid update from Superintendent Scott Elliott, a motion was made and seconded to end our mask mandate policy on Monday Feb 21. 

In the board’s discussion of this motion, I announced that I would vote no and provided my reasons. Likewise, other board members provided justifications for their votes. The motion ultimately did not pass. Satisfying our legal obligation to act on our current policy, the board then discussed a number of options of metric levels and/or dates that might be appropriate for a change. Ultimately we decided, wisely in my opinion, to let changing local conditions dictate our next action and not some a priori date on the calendar. We ensured that the board could legally meet in an “emergency meeting” at any time.

Expectedly, I was swamped with dozens of emails expressing displeasure with my vote (and a few thankful emails). In response I tried to provide insight to the root of my decision making. Below is reproduced the core of my response.

———————————————————-

Good evening,

I hear your disappointment with my vote last night. I do understand your frustration with the continued mask mandates. As a teacher at App State I also am required to wear a mask many hours each day. 

Epidemiology, communicable disease, and industrial hygiene are not my areas of expertise. I have read hundreds of articles, many sent to me by parents who spoke against the mask mandate last night. And while I feel well-informed, I am still no expert in these fields. Therefore, I choose to listen to our state’s and country’s top experts in these fields.

This is the link to the CDC’s page for Watauga County.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#county-view?list_select_county=37189

Our current case rate is 765, which is over 7 times the value to move out of the “high” red level. But, yesterday this rate was 936. So it is dropping very quickly.

This is the link to the NC DHHS schools toolkit.

https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/media/164/open

Page 3 summarizes their recommendations and the 3rd bullet there is very clear in recommending indoor masking as long as our county is in the substantial (orange) or high (red) levels.

Locally, this is a newspaper article from last week.

https://www.wataugademocrat.com/news/local/wmc-still-seeing-high-number-of-covid-19-patients/article_b1a7ed7d-f8e3-5adb-ae46-9bad2c93dff8.html

Cases remain high, hospitals are crowded, and 4 people died in a week including a parent of a school family. And these numbers are also decreasing quickly.

As I said last night when casting my vote, while these metrics are falling fast they remain too high to act at this particular moment. I made sure that the board is willing and able to conduct an emergency meeting as soon as the metrics really do continue to fall to more manageable levels. I am not naive to think that we must get to 0. But 936 (last night) and 765 (today) are still too high. Not by my determination but by the determination of NC DHHS and the CDC experts.

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So I hope that this letter catches you up on the public schools masking policy decision of February 14th, and in particular my personal perspective. 

Stay tuned for more background, more context, and other issues happening in our board of education meetings. Feel free to contact me directly at FenwickJ@WataugaSchools.org.

Watauga BOE Reverses Its Masking Policy for Public Schools

 

Yesterday, the Watauga County Board of Education reversed its 3-2 vote on July 26 to make masking in public schools optional, voting unanimously for a mask mandate for all students and staff, starting immediately.

Congresswoman Virginia Foxx did not show up to lecture the board that they were taking away the freedoms of Americans, nor was there a storm cloud of angry anti-masking parents in attendance to yell and shut down the meeting -- unlike, in other words, the scene at the Buncombe County Board of Education, which voted a similar policy and which drew the in-person fulminations of Congressman Madison Cawthorn.

Phil Berger sez: "Don't Listen to the CDC." Apparently, the Watauga School Bd Agrees

 

Republican NC Senate boss Phil Berger sent out a fundraising email this past Wednesday that flattered his donors for their country wisdom and their scoffing at science. But what politician ever went broke flattering the ignorance of their supporters? Here's the full Berger product (from the copy in newsobserver.com):

I ate a lot of cookie dough myself as a youngin, usually surreptitiously behind my mother's back. "Get outta that! It'll give you worms!" That warning was no deterrence whatsoever, so I get the brilliance of Berger's analogy (the virus equals cookie dough, which some eggheads think is dangerous). "Owning the libs" is great sport, refusing to wear a mask or cooperate with social distancing or even concede that a pandemic currently exists. Flattery goeth before the pitch: Give me your money to save the state from "Left Wing bureaucrats."

It's all Trump's fault, of course, the diverging lines of pure pestilential rumor about the virus (and its progeny), invented for partisan purposes, or just plain lies, or the fiction-writing habits of a man who wouldn't recognize the truth if he encountered it. I can agree that the CDC deserves some condemnation for inconsistency of message -- did we trust it during the Trump Regime? We pick our authorities, someone we listen to, sometimes because they don't flatter us. I'll take Anthony Fauci over Berger most days (and you'll notice the truly low blow Berger dishes to "Dr. Fauci" -- the continued scapegoating of the good doctor as a handy target).

Trump caused the confusion. Watauga County is doing its part to add to it. Governor Cooper wants masks in schools ("strongly recommend"). Watauga County school board votes to make masks optional -- whatever the parents want. “Look at this again,” Cooper said yesterday, urging school boards to reconsider that "optional." “Look at the number in your county, and the danger your students could face.”

Watauga School Board member Gary Childers was the swing vote in the 3-2 partisan decision to let parents dress their kids for success, mask or no mask. The board has two Republicans, two Democrats, with Childers the Unaffiliated swing vote. "The motion ... passed despite almost every board member agreeing that they thought — while hoping it wouldn’t — COVID-19 cases and transmission would rise in the county in the future." Duh.

Will the school board reconsider as Cooper requested yesterday? Perhaps. The motion to make masks optional was made explicitly reversible. Gary Childers may be rethinking his vote at this very moment.

Dan Soucek, Painting Lipstick on His Pig

The suddenly uninterested state Senator Dan Soucek sent out an email  last September praising himself and his side of the General Assembly for the budget the Republicans passed, and he made the best of some lousy policy by misrepresenting what actually happened.

Soucek wrote, "The budget boosts early-career teacher pay to from $33,000 to $35,000 per year and provides experienced-based step increases to teachers, assistant principals, principals, State Highway Patrol troopers, clerks and magistrates."

Ah, "experienced-based step increases." What Soucek didn't bother to explain: Those step increases are banded together into groups of five years, so no salary increase at all for four years and then a band (step) increase, followed by four more years of no increase, etc.

Soucek wrote, "The [budget] agreement funds all teacher assistant positions supported in last year’s budget...."

That's a bit of fast footwork. What Soucek didn't mention: Although we have the same funding level for teaching assistants statewide, we also have a changed formula (class-size-to-TA ratios) resulting in a loss of TA funding for Watauga for the same number of classrooms. Watauga County Schools will have to borrow from Peter (elsewhere in the school budget) to pay Paul (all the existing TAs that didn't already retire out of disgust with the way Soucek and his buddies in Raleigh have behaved toward public education).

Update on HB 539 Charter School Funding Bill

While the NC legislature finally agreed on a budget almost two weeks ago, they are not quite finished. This past week they brought back HB 539 for consideration. HB 539 provides additional funding for charters by taking non-instructional funding away from traditional public schools. Legislators will be considering the bill Monday Sep 28th, so they need to hear from constituents now. Moreover, some legislators are saying that they are hearing from charter school advocates but not from public school advocates.

Legal experts are confident that litigation is inevitable if the bill passes; this wastes even more precious state funds that could be saved by delaying the bill to study it. 

http://www.ncleg.net has contact info and bill info.

Jonathan.Jordan@ncleg.net

Dan.Soucek@ncleg.net

Charter schools already receive their fair share of all direct instruction monies and additional special education monies. This funding is following the child. But HB 539 requires certain other monies to be shared also. I'd like to share two examples to illustrate that this legislation needs to be tabled and studied.

Watauga County Schools provides an after school program. This program is self-sufficient, meaning that they charge families for the services rendered. There is no profit margin here, but HB 539 makes these fees become shared.

I am not completely certain how the sharing percentage will be calculated, but instructional monies are shared based on enrollment. Roughly, about 4.3% of Watauga students attend our charter school. Using this figure about $7.50 of the monthly after school $175 fee would have to be shared. Where will this money come from? Two obvious sources are the after-school parents in the form of increased fees, or some other part of the underfunded school budget.

As another example, Watauga County Schools is enjoying near record levels for its high school graduation rate. But we continue to look for ways to improve. If we were to receive funds targeting graduation rate improvements, we would be required by HB 539 to share those funds. Does it matter if the charter school does not have a high school program? No, the funds must be shared.

Watauga County is very fortunate to have a successful charter school in Two Rivers Community School. (Many charters have been mismanaged and folded.) I know many families that have children there, and I know many of the teachers. I appreciate them and the good work they do. And I support the principle that money collected by the state and allocated to teach students should follow those students that choose to go to Two Rivers. 

But as these examples show, HB 539 siphons away operational funds not even collected by the state. In essence it adds a type of charter school surcharge to many programs. I ask you to consider contacting our local representatives asking them to delay HB 539 for further study.

--

Jay Fenwick

Watauga Board of Education Member

fenwickj@watauga.k12.nc.us

Watauga GOP Planning to "One-Shot" Jason Cornett for School Board

It's pretty clear from the Watauga Republican Party Facebook page that the administrators are endorsing Jason Cornette and throwing the other two Republican candidates, Ron Henries and Adam L. Trivette, under the bus.

Interesting.

Currently, there's a 3-2 Republican majority on the School Board: Dr. Lee Warren, Delora Hodges, and Ron Henries. Warren and Hodges chose not to run for reelection this year. Henries is in hot water with the Republican Party because he didn't side with the book banners over the Isabel Allende novel.

Rather than adopting a strategy of trying to win all three of their Republican candidates and thus continue a majority on the Board, the local Party leaders appear to be resigned to Jason Cornett alone.

He was the only real bright spot for Republican hopes on the May primary ballot, coming in third with 14% of the vote.

Will David Blust et al. Run as "Nathan Miller Republicans"?

Reading about County Commission Chair Nathan Miller's vindictiveness toward Watauga County Schools and seeing that Commissioners David Blust and Perry Yates were nothing but bobble-heads in agreement with the Miller agenda raise a question about the November elections in Watauga County.

Does the local GOP intend to run on the Miller record and uphold the Miller philosophy?

Where does Karen Lerch stand on Nathan Millerism? She has been overheard to say that she hasn't even studied the "issues" yet, but a moment of truth approaches for her.

What about Jimmy Hodges?

Commissioner David Blust has departed from Millerism at times, especially (and most recently) on the quickie deal engineered by County Attorney Four Eggers that would have given the town of Beech Mountain access to Watauga River water. And on that other scheme to build a commercial business park on Hwy 194. Political considerations (that is, reality) overruled Blust's usual party-line kowtowing to Miller on those votes. Otherwise, Blust is generally in complete and serene agreement with his chair.

As it's been Nathan Millerism that has dominated actions and attitudes for the last two years on the Watauga County Commission, this upcoming County Commission election is likely to be a referendum on a man who is in the process of being involuntarily sidelined from political office because of his personality, his political philosophy, and his character.

Primary Campaign Hangover

1. Watauga Conservatives PAC, the outfit behind the Kanoy/Trivette/Cornett yard signs, registered with the State Board of Elections on April 27, with Janet L. Woods listed as treasurer. They reported $1,000 raised, all of it given by Paula Medley who was herself present at some polling stations yesterday promoting the conservative School Board candidates. The PAC appears to have spent most of that $1,000 on those yard signs.

2. The State Board of Elections website last night was error-ridden and prone to crashing. News outlets in major cities were reduced to calling local county boards of elections to get accurate polling results. Heck of a job, SBOE.

3. In the 24th Prosecutorial District Attorney primary, also-ran third-place finished Nathan Miller (who got 19% of the vote district-wide) told the Watauga Democrat, "I'm disappointed that Watauga County Republicans did not show up at the polls." Well, they did show up in what may well turn out to be record numbers, eclipsing the Republican primary turnout of 2010. But unaffiliated voters also showed up, and the majority of them chose a Republican ballot to vote:

Republican ballots pulled: 3,832 (59.12%)
Democratic ballots pulled: 2,547 (39.29%)
Unaffiliated ballots pulled: 81 (1.25%)
Libertarian ballots pulled: 22 (.34%)

We don't yet have the total number of unaffiliated voters who showed up, but anecdotally we can conclude that they were not coming in to vote for Mr. Miller. Although he carried Watauga by -- what? -- some 46%, more votes were cast against him in Watauga than for him. #NathanMillerismFail

4. Before we leave the statistics directly above, and even without knowing how many total unaffiliated voters went to the polls in this primary, one thing is pretty clear: the local Republican Party has a big problem with independent voters. Supreme Court Justice Robin Hudson won Watauga County easily, Nathan Miller lost, and three progressive School Board candidates were in the top four finishers in that race. Unaffiliated voters don't tend to like the direction that the local GOP has been heading, especially perhaps in the matters of cronyism, voting rights, and the mismanagement of the local Board of Elections. #FourEggersismFail

5. The turnout of Appalachian State University students was de minimis. The local conservatives dependably blame student voters for their electoral failures, but they can't hide behind that lame excuse in this present case. #AnneMarieYatesismFail

Remarkable Numbers

Bald Mountain precinct still outstanding, but it's clear that at least 1,000 more Republican ballots were voted today than Democratic in Watauga, yet the three progressive School Board candidates finished first, second, and fourth among the six who are surviving the primary.

Those numbers have got to put some people back on their heels ... like me!

In other similarly amazing news, Supreme Court Associate Justice Robin Hudson appears to be leading state-wide in that outside-money-bashing judicial race.

Karen Lerch is leading Matt Klutz by a very slim margin in that Republican County Commission primary, which says something about the weakness in the mainstream Republican Party in Watauga.

On the other hand, Miller is leading Springer in Watauga in the district attorney race, but Springer appears to be way ahead in the whole district.

Who's Being Eliminated from School Board Eight?

Meat Camp could change things, but looks as though Tiffany Christian and Josh Kanoy will be knocked off the School Board ballot for November.

Early School Board Numbers

Jay Fenwick, Ronny Holste, and Kurt Michael leading in Early Voting by substantial margins.

The three conservative school board candidates trailing Henries.