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Until the school board uses the money it receives wisely, I have little sympathy.

The commissioners and the tax payers need to look at the wasted money: out of state workshop leaders brought in at outlandish cost, busing to achieve "diversity", consultants on the payroll, unnecessary staff, no-bid contracts, seeingly incompetent contracters, and much more.

The Jamestown parents were promised a new school from the last bond money. This will not happen.

While the middle college works for a few students, I question the cost. The early college program helps the brightest kids, I question the cost. I question the purchase of a building near Smith for a new program.

I agree we need more schools. Ragsdale and Southwest are overflowing. Just ride by and look at the trailers. I agree that we need more teaching assistants.

I question the policies of Terry Grier and the School Board. I question their use of our money.

Throwing money into the system will not help teacher morale. Finding ways to control discipline is what will help. That does not cost money, just the guts to do what needs to be done.

I'm with Carol on this one. Don't throw any more money to the school board to waste.

I agree that new schools need to built. On top of that, our current schools should be better utilized.

I would love it a lot more if the schools could be built, THEN handed over to the school board to run. Currently, money is appropriated and control of that money is given to the school board (I think). Then, the schools are never built.

Terry Grier and this board cannot be trusted with money as exhibited by all the stupid stuff they've spent it on that Carol mentioned.

I'm with Carol and yellowdog on this one. I'm sure Ms. Fabrizio is sincere in her concerns that the schools don't have enough resources, they don't, as evidenced by teachers lacking the basics such as class room supplies and paper.

But, saying that schools lack resources is not the same thing as saying that they don't have enough money. We have seen time after time that money is wasted in this system on stuff that has no impact upon learning, such as the $500,000 budgeted this year for "racial healing" training and consultants. Terry Grier is the one that determines how many resources are allocated to the schools, not the county commissioners. To berate the comissioners for not having enough resources in the schools is misguided, at best.

Teacher Assistants? Terry Grier is on the record as saying that he doesn't think that they are needed as they don't add anything to the learning process. He may talk a good game about their value, but in the end, they will be cut. You see, Ms. Fabrizio, Terry Grier always makes cuts from the district budget in the place that it hurts the most and gets parents' attention, the class room. You will never see cuts made at the central office where there are many six-figure salaried employees. And, in the end, what value do the people in central office really add to the learning process?

Ms. Fabrizio, direct your ire to the right place. It's not a matter of the schools getting enough money, it's a matter of Terry Grier spending it in the right place, the class room. And, for the record, our school board does nothing to help this sad situation either. Teacher morale may be low in the district, but that is a function of Terry Grier, not the commissioners. If you doubt that, ask any teacher.

County Commissioners:

Six weeks ago I received a call from Superintendent Grier to come to the School Board’s offices to review the budget. He said this invitation was being extended to all candidates running for school board. As I am very busy running several businesses I requested a copy beforehand so that I could ask intelligent questions about the budget and the process by which it is created. I also did not want to appear to provide any endorsement of this budget or its’ process prior to being fully informed. A couple weeks later I received and email from Susan Ozmet containing 2 spreadsheets. Both were related to the amount of estimated income from Federal and State Sources and estimated population demographics. I have yet to receive a true budget of how funds will be spent or even how much they estimate is needed to run the district.

In a move that appears to be more political in nature, they are now holding public meetings to supposedly discuss the budget with the public. Unfortunately these meeting neither provide a budget for the public to look at, nor useful information for the public to become aware of. They are political pep rally’s to show the Commissioner’s that there is little interest nor opposition to the budget. Well this is hogwash at its’ best.

From what little I can garner from the budget, no attempt has been made to review last years numbers, which were already bloated with unnecessary bureaucracy. The “additional money needed over last year’s budget does not even contemplate the savings that will be had from one time items. In fact it double dips by requesting items again. In addition a new diversity officer and a support staff for this officer plus overhead etc, for a position that currently is handled by existing overpaid staff is ludicrous. Racial sensitivity training of almost a half million last year to a religious organization in the county was in last years budget, they are saying they need that much more this year again (this would total almost a million this year as they did not reduce budget for it from last year) when this training did little more than annoy teachers and staff that were required to attend.

The millions that will not be spent on the so called choice plan appear to have disappeared from the savings column, and instead more is being requested for the busing plan in High Point. The savings should have been at least treble not costing more! We could go on, but alas, it would be depressing and more of the same.

While I agree we need more funding for our schools, teachers are poorly supplied, needed text books have been cut from budget, teachers and kids do without, our school yards look like ghettos as maintenance appears lacking and we need more teachers and smaller classes and programs to provide incentives for volunteers and community involvement. I believe that proper management of resources, belt tightening and more emphasis on teaching and less on administrative issues would produce a better quality educational environment and product for our children. Instead of spend, spend, spend, our school management and Board should be saying educate, educate, educate. By forcing the School Board to do more, with the same as last year, you might actually force them to look at how they spend and reduce costly self serving administrative programs (they gave themselves and Grier a raise in a year scores went down!) and use these resources to teach. They have lost sight of what a budget is and where the dollars come from. More importantly they have lost sight of what the dollars should be used for, teachers and students, not administrators, special projects and self serving construction contracts.

Yes, our schools need more, but the more current management wants is being mismanaged and is unnecessary. Savings from true budgeting and proper management could improve education in our county at little or no increased cost to overburdened taxpayers. Draw the line. The interest on the existing school bonds will raise taxes by at least $22,5000,000 a year when projects are completed. Retiring debt over the next 20 years will add an extra 25 million a year on average. That means we are burdening taxpayers on average, an additional 47,500,000 a year for existing school bonds. This by itself is a significant tax increase, add to that the 22 million more for this year that they want (they know they will get 10 mill) and you have a huge budget proliferation. In addition they want and need more Bonds for school construction after having recklessly spent the first 500 million. Please, as a taxpayer I ask you to provide better supervision of our tax dollars as this crowd has no common sense.
Garth Hebert

Wonderful letter, Garth. You have my support for what it's worth. I am not in your district; however, I will do all I can to help.

Very good letter Garth. I hope that you have sent it to the commissioners themselves.
You have mine and my families support.

Where do you stand on Terry Grier keeping his position and getting that "raise" he was promised durring the "charlotte ruse" Garth?

Maybe we could take some of the money currently being wasted on (fill in the blank) and spend it on actual education.

I liken giving our current system more money to increasing my 5 year old's allowance to $50 a week and then watching as she invests it in the most ridiculous of items.

Great anaology, JEC. The schools seem to be run like the rest of government, and the students, teachers, and administrators are the losers.

Enjoy the weekend and the last FOUR days of school.

Interesting this letter comes from Colfax.