News-Record.com

sorry Doug,

anyone who has done as much to foster special interest and set back public education as far as Dot has, only deserves the bricks, not the building. She's caught bricks because her actions have been unfair, self serving, extremely subjective. Her ability to remain in office is not a testament to her good works, but to the power of incumbency and PAC support (simkins to name one) Now, one of the private schools in the area might name one of their buildings after her.

You have to be dead to have a school named after you in Guilford County. I hope they name a school after her too. Wait, there's already one. The new wing at Weslyan is called the "Dot Wing" since she personally was responsible for driving hundreds of families to private eduation. She has always had ONE school on her agenda and that was High Point Central. That's the ONLY school she EVER cared about and it wasn't even the kids she cared about, it was how it looked to her adoring fans in Emorywood. May a school be named after her very soon.

"It's an intensely unpopular position with little support from white or black communities...."

That's so true, Doug. A public official is elected to support the public sector. An at-large rep is supposed to listen to all communities, not just what benefits her corner of the city and what is self-serving.

I strongly agree with Mike G that naming a private school after Dot Kearns would be much more appropriate. She has done more for the growth of the private school industry in High Point than any other individual (with the posible exception of Susan M).

As far as the Grier detractors......the "choice" plan aka HP Lottery for Southwest Students Only plan was not conceived by Terry Grier. It was started by Dot and Susan. They and other members of the BOE allowed Grier to take the heat. In the end, he got the last laugh as he heads out to sunny California for his high paying job. Yep, no worry about whether to run the buses on an icy day out there (among other things).

All of the original 6 board members who voted for the plan are gone or will be gone. Only Kris and Alan remain. Since the "choice" plan, Kris and
Alan have been open to other solutions of what the entire High Point community wants, not just the old High Point regime. Both had their eyes opened since then.

Dot's statements in the newspaper as to why she chose to run the last time were ridiculous.....something like she was waiting for someone who would believe in our schools, children like she did and would do a good job in an at-large position. Kirkpatrick, Garth and Debbie Manes would all have made wonderful board members in the opinions of MANY. Garth is proving himself. He's is a great listerner and a fair person.

About naming a public school anyway, I thought it was a rule that the person had to be deceased?

Oops, forgot the Cartwright woman. She was awesome too.

I admit I don't know the rule about naming schools. High Point named a middle school for Laurin Welborn, who's still alive.

Elected representatives aren't required to take a public opinion survey every time they make a decision. Some might try to reflect what they think is majority opinion, others take the view that they were elected to apply their own judgment. Sometimes it's a combination of approaches. The voters have their say at the next election.

Doug, I would have expected more from you than simply a press release that looks like it was written by Dot Kearns herself.

Again, you make a sweeping value judgement that busing kids across High Point is worth the social benefits of kids of different backgrounds getting to know each other. First of all; mixing kids of different backgrounds has always been the case in SW schools and has never been an issue, but even if SW was lilly white, you're making a value judgement about busing that millions of Americans don't agree with. You should have clarified that that is your opinion.

I guess there was a little too much "mixing" at Central High and Ferndale which brings us to the next issue, and I would appreciate you giving me an honest answer; Do you think that if the traditonally white Central High and Ferndale Middle were 80% white and 20% black that there would ever be "choice plans" etc. Do you think Dot Kearns would be demographics obsessed? Do you think the constituency of Central Highschool- the scions of the High Point furniture and textile industry families would ever be forcefully bused to a minority dominant school to enjoy the benefits of "mixing". Doug, you really don't have to answer this. Everybody knows the answer, and if you answer honestly it would obviate any more discussion on the "choice plan"
forever because if a single north High Point parent believed any of the above the CP may have actually happened.

Dot saw a way she could dovetail an ostensible interest in the politically correct watchword "diversity" with trying to demographically preserve a school that she saw as demographically changing in a non-optimal way, eminently affecting real estate values. She saw increasing amounts of her neighbors flocking to private schools and Davidson Co, so she cooked up this b.s. and went after public school white kids no matter where or how, using any means possible and got you and others to swallow it as some type of humanitarian effort. You still don''t understand that nobody bought the con.

You say that after the schoolboard merger Dot became a strong advocate for High Point. Again probably would have been better to say "Central High Point" since as far a north High Point goes all Dot ever did was seemingly raid for white kids over and over and over again. One of the great problems was out of their own arrogance and sense of entitlement, Central High Point has always looked eyed askance at n. High Point as noveau arrivistes who had no identity of their own who had no right to their own schools etc. and "if the kids are white, lets go get 'em. "

Dot failed to note the changing of the times and that High Point's little child north of the Deep River was growing into a independent young adult who wasn't going to swallow the program any more and maybe we'll all laugh about this in the future as simply a community's growing pains. You say it is worth busing across a "small city of High Point". (I don't think you drive Rt. 68 or High Point Rd. much). I think this shows,like Dot, you are still thinking of the 1965 High Point.

Did Dot deserve the abuse she took? No. But you have to realize the people fighting her had at that time no board representation and tried all civil means possible to tell her what she was doing was not going to work for them, but this fell on deaf ears.

That being said, the sheer number of hours Dot has worked over the years in the service of her constiuency is mind boggling and deserves commendation from even her most jaded opponents.

According to the GCS website the official name of Welborn is : "Welborn Academy of Science and Technology". There was a magnet grant somewhere respsonsible for that. Now doesn't that fancy name make you want to move to High Point and attend?--that's the goal of magnets ya know. See, Dot and her regime were all about shuffling kids and changing names. That's not an effective way to educate if you ask me. I long for the day when our system will be about TEACHING the kids where they sit. Until then my children will be in private school. Btw, that's thanks to Dot. We chose to leave the system 4 years ago during the "Choice Plan" that wasn't really a choice. I wish the system well. It can only get better with Dot gone.

Also, please ask Dot where her grandchildren and other family members send their kids to school. Sure, she has out of state family but her family that lives HERE, send their children to another county for school! Seems rather odd doesn't it? Possibly they don't even like what she's dishing out.

She's truly a crazy women. She might be nice and think she's doing what's best but what she's aiming for is old thinking from the 60's and earlier.

You go Skeet Club!

WE SHALL NEVER FORGET!

The only regret I have about Dotty not running is the SW kids that got screwed royally with the High Point No Choice Lottery Plan That Benefits Central Only is that they will not have a chance to vote her out now that most of them are 18 (or older thanks to Dotty screwing with their education)

Patriots,

Don't forget all those l o n g g g g stories about how she saved the farmers and their children in High Point. That is our children's favorite bedtime story.

I think Dot knew her health couldn't take the Rhino ads and 3 D displays that were planned for the 2008 elections. The bus drivers sure miss those seasonal displays.

Judy, Dot does not have children or grandchildren who live here. I don't know about more distant relatives, but how would she be responsible for their educational decisions?

Dr. Savage, I wrote in the column that the choice plan was unpopular and it failed. You continue to repeat your view that Dot was motivated by real estate interests. I think your slander discredits you, particularly when you don't even have the guts or decency to sign your real name to it, but obviously you're going to repeat it under one pseudonym or other until the day she dies and maybe even longer. Enjoy.

Mr. Clark, Can you give an answer to the question the Savage posed above?

1. Do you think there would be a "choice plans" if Central was today 80% white 20% black? Do you think the Millers, Morgans Ildertons and the Gallimores would let their kids be ripped out of Central and be bused to Andrews against their will?

2);Do you think that school demographics affect property values?

3. Do you think Dot's realty employer- Craven et;al has not sold and collected commisions on premiumly-priced homes sold in Davidson co. as a direct result of Dot's scortch and burn High Point policies?

Doug,,,, theme from Jeopardys playing. Da-da, da-dah, da da da. Da-dah, da-dah, DUH, da, da, da, da, da...

Doug, thanks for reminding me how great things were around here from 90 - 92 when we were "Dot-free". It was the best.

She just squeeked by 4 years ago. Even though she won it bothers her to this day that 48% of County wanted her gone. So I would add that to her political OBIT.... steadily declining popularity.

She choose to runaway like her sidekick Susan Mendenhall. No matter either way the children and the taxpayers win that she is gone.

However she does how one more vote coming up in May. A resounding NO VOTE to those bonds is the best way to send her packing.

Thank you, John.

The choice plan was consistent with Dot Kearns' long-held views about racial and socioeconomic balance in public schools, so to imply it was something she cooked up to benefit the real estate firm that employed her is absurd, insulting and defamatory. But thank you for signing your name this time.

She also amply demonstrated, in my observation, her concern for kids at many more schools than High Point Central.

I can't speak for the other people you named, but as for me, if the IB program had been placed at Andrews instead of Central, Andrews is where my kids would have gone. Andrews is about 3.5 miles from Central. Big deal.

Yes, defeating the bonds will really show Dot. She'll have to attend school in a trailer for the next 12 years.

Not that I'm sold on the bonds, but I'm going to have to base my vote on a better reason.

Doug, there was never a snow ball's chance in Hades that the IB progam would be at Andrews and you know that, so making that statement is meaningless.

I am going to grant you that it's not likely Dot Kearns sat down and did the CP as a means to line her pocket. That is probably ridiculous. She has enough other stuff to worry about.

That via the CP; Dot would help preserve property values in her neighborhood, which also happens to be the place that was a significant part of the market she personally worked as a realtor, may have merely been collateral benefit of school demographic manipulation that may or may not have caused Dot any second thoughts. When Dot and Mendenhall did their HPE CP manifesto, the one that Becky Smothers essentially forced them to write after things were getting hot for her, they did mention "the CP would help property values all over town-not just in one part" (direct quote) so I'm not really pulling discusssion of property values out of the old dupa here, Doug

That her company also sells Davidson co. real estate was again probably a collateral benefit. I can't help thinking however, that if the Craven group told Dot they were losing money because of her school policies, that it would have carried more weight than me telling her her busing policy was not good.

One question you left unanswered is: would there have been a HPCP if Central was 80% white to this day?

You see, every susequent discussion becomes irrelevant when it's established you are doing something to somebody else you would never do to you and your's. After that, the hows and whys become irrelevant.

For example the remaining long-standing Board members (pre-06 election) who wasted millions on the prior two bonds and delivered new/refurbished projects over-budget and late.

And now Dot wants more money. Let the wasting of taxpayers' dollars be her legacy.

Doug,

Dot focused her social engineering efforts on Central High School only.

Name one time that she ever publicly attempted to bring diversity to Northwest, Dudley, or Smith.

Doug,

how can you say that she has been an advocate for positive chage south of oak hollow lake? do you really think that Central and Andrews have improved in the last 5 years, even with the abortion of a choice plan Dot helped ram down our throats. north of oak hollow lake, she has never missed an opportunity to stick it to her constituents. For someone who is clearly republican in most of his beliefs, your liberal side is showing.

Dot works for Craven Johnson Pollock Realtors.

The "Central only" stuff is just nonsense. Dot has always tried to move kids around for racial balance. She'll tell you if she had the votes she'd be doing it everything. The accepted method in recent years has been through magnet programs, which she has pushed hard. The arts magnet at Parkview was an early effort in High Point. That led to the arts magnet at Penn-Griffin. Anyone who says "Central only" knows nothing about Dot's political career going back 36 years -- back when integration wasn't popular.

Doc, the answer to your very narrow question is no. But Central was always one small part of the issue. It's the same issue that drove the merger debate back probably before you came to High Point. And, yes, real estate values figure into the equation. The High Point establishment pushed merger for two main reasons: the city school system's tax base was stagnant, and the student population was growing increasingly minority and poor. A city with failing schools is a city in decline. Very much in brief, city leaders were trying to save the life of High Point, and changing the school system was one means they pursued to do that. That's been a theme for more than two decades now. It drove merger, it drove redistricting, it drove the choice plan. Still, many of the inner-city schools are in danger of failing, and that is unhealthy for all of High Point. At this point, we know moving kids around is not going to be part of a solution, so other, better measures are needed.

People who simply move their kids to private schools -- and I'm not blaming them; if that's what they think is best, they should do it -- escape only the immediate problem. But if they continue to live in High Point, they will feel the effects that a declining public school system will have on the entire city.

Some of these posts are, perhaps predictably, overly harsh. I have no reason to believe that Dot Kearns is anything other than what she appears to be -- a nice, good-hearted person who truly feels that what she is doing is right. Like Doug said, she's a social crusader from way back.

However, she also was wrong far more than she was right. The type of liberalism espoused by Mrs. Kearns has been a proven failure time and time again throughout human history. The dreaded "High Point Choice Plan" is just one illustration of this liberal philosophy -- the notion that government, not the people, knows what is best.

I wish Mrs. Kearns nothing but the best in her retirement from the school board. But I sure hope her replacement doesn't share her beliefs.

I haven't agreed with Dot on every issue by a long shot. I don't think she's had all the answers for improving schools. Nor do I think she's to blame for every decline when so many students come to school from such bad home environments. But she's also done a lot, going back many years, to improve early education opportunities for those kids. For whatever cause she's committed herself, she's worked tirelessly. Lots of people can criticize -- I do plenty -- but there aren't that many doers around. She's been one. If you don't like what she's done, you can always get out and do something else yourself. School board filing doesn't end until Friday.

"Judy, Dot does not have children or grandchildren who live here. I don't know about more distant relatives, but how would she be responsible for their educational decisions?"

Doug, if we apply your standards on Dot not being responsible for her distant relative children's educational decisions to everyone else's children, then by the same standard she shouldn't be making those decisions for the children of the residents of Guilford County either. But, that has never stopped her from substituting her judgment for those of the children's parents. That is the problem with Dot Kearns as a member of the school board. She believes that the good old socialist approach is the best. Government operatives such as herself can make better decisions for what is good for children than their parents can. So, why shouldn't she make educational decisions for her distant relatives children?

Further, when you say that Dot was looking out for the educational good of all High Point children, let us not forget that she was elected as At-Large Member, not a High Point representative. Dot admittedly was focused on what was good for High Point, exclusively. She could have cared less for what happened in education in the rest of the county. this alone made her a lousy At-Large representative.

There is no policy prohibiting the naming of a school after a living person. However, it is a bad idea. Her life is not finished, her term on the BOE will be over. That's it. The BOE has never appreciated great names of any era. I don't expect them to change very soon.

Stormy, I wouldn't argue with you, but Judy seemed to be making a point that I took to be something like: Dot's a hypocrite because she doesn't have her own children live out her ideals about schools. I believe Judy is off base with her facts.

Judy is NOT off base with her facts. Do your homework, Doug. Dot has relatives that drive OVER the county line to attend school.

What relatives, Judy? You said grandchildren. Is that true or not? To my knowledge, it is not true. But what's the point, anyway? Is an elected official responsible for the actions of all his or her relatives? Would it be a scandal if Steve Arnold had a second cousin who voted for Barack Obama?

You're right, Doug. What's the point. You're the one who gets paid to sit around and write about Dot so if you're really interested, go do some research. I said that I know she has *some* relatives out of state (that's where her grandkids are) but I said there are some *family members* that live HERE...so I didn't specify grandchildren. But, she DOES have family that drive across the line and pay$ to attend in another district. And yep, that's their right. So, back to your point which basically says it's no big deal. Well yes it is a big deal. She wouldn't do to her own family what she expected others to do. She is a hypocrite and the only school that will ever be named after her is possibly a Scales school and that will be filled with all the children that she didn't want attending Central. THAT my dear Doug is what this ALL was about. She didn't like the kids she saw coming out of her crown jewel Central. She's outta here now and she's made a mess not for others to fix.

Suffice it to say that Dot stands for "Damage Over Time."

Hopefully now this district can begin the repair process.

Judy, you certainly did specify grandchildren; you can go back and read what you wrote.

I just don't know what you mean by saying she "wouldn't do to her own family what she expected others to do." If she has unspecified relatives -- not her kids, not even her grandkids -- driving across the county line to school, what's she supposed to do, call the border patrol? She's a hypocrite if these relatives don't go to GCS? I have to disagree.

I am a proponent of public schools, so I sent my kids to public schools. I have three nieces who went to a private school K-8. Does that make me a hypocrite? (I wasn't paying their tuition, believe me.)

Matthew: Thanks for the link. You have an impressive site.

Here it is, for other readers:

http://www.matthewktabor.com/

"Also, please ask Dot where her grandchildren and other family members send their kids to school. Sure, she has out of state family but her family that lives HERE, send their children to another county for school! "

That's exactly what I said. And it's 100% true. You won't see my point even if it slapped you across the face. My point, if you cared to listen is that if Dot was offering such a wonderful, top-notch program that was sooo good for all, then everyone, including her family members would be clamoring to participate--but instead they RUN the opposite direction. Yes, their right. I get that and I commend them for doing what's best for their children. Just as I do.

What's your point anyway about Steve Arnold's family and Obama? Are you suggesting that if only blacks are voting for Obama. See Doug, your racism colors are showing again. Better tuck them out. You know you should only show them when you're at the country club with Dot.

Thanks for the slap, Judy. I see your point now: not everyone liked the school programs Dot supported. I guess I never realized that.

If I were suggesting that only blacks were voting for Obama, I'd be missing quite a story. Barack Obama is not Jesse Jackson.

And, sorry to disappoint you. I don't belong to the country club, although I jog past it in the mornings and feel sort of privileged.

Doug, you are digging your hole deeper. bottom line: Dot has served this county for a long time. perhaps programs she supported in the past were good, but her support for programs in recent memory were opposed by large segments of her constituency and she IGNORED her detractors. She will not be remebered for the good she may or may not have done. She will be remembered for the things she did that were bad. I for one, and I know many many people who agree wholeheartedly, will never forgive her for dividing High Point by supporting programs that were foolish and destructive to the public school system. I have long been a supporter of Public education. Dot drove me and many others to private schools for my children. something for which she will never be forgotten. that will be her legacy.

Thanks for the comment.

Different people may have different ideas of a public figure's legacy. From your perspective, your view of Dot's record is perfectly valid. Others are entitled to your own opinions.

I suspect there will be widely varied suggestions for what George W. Bush's legacy will be. Sometimes it takes a while for a historical consensus to develop, sometimes not.

I agree that Mrs. Kearns can't be held responsible for what her relatives choose to do. None of us can -- that's an unfair standard.

But to follow up on one of your earlier comments, one of Mrs. Kearns' biggest problems was that she is a "doer." Sometimes, the best policy is to simply leave things alone, but in classic liberal fashion, she always believed that if a little government is good, then a lot of government would be better.

Personally, I think our government would be a lot better off if we had fewer "doers" in elected office. "Doing" typically leads to more government and higher taxes.

Well, I'll agree that Calvin Coolidge remains an underappreciated president.

Doug,

Much of the issue here is that Dot felt free, even an obligation as a socialist, to bus other people's kids to achieve her social goals, without the parents approval. As you indicated, she did this freely to achieve goals that she thought important. The issue is that she used her position to "use" other people's children in her societal experiments. I say experiment as there is no proof that busing kids across the county to achieve a different mix of kids really promotes a better education for any of the kids. And, that is what this group is charged with doing. It's the Board of Education, not the Board of Diversity Fulfillment. When school board members and school administrators implement programs to achieve diversity as an end in itself, they have wandered off the reservation.

I won't contest that assessment, but I'd suggest you could say the same thing all kinds of policy decisions school officials make ... curriculum, for example. You could say a decision to teach certain subjects in certain ways is using people's children for social purposes without their permission. In regard to Dot and racial balance, it's the particular purpose and method that many people found unacceptable. The power wielded in pursuit of those goals was not at all unusual. We grant it to elected bodies and their appointed officials as a matter of course.

Doug, It was only one section of Guilford County was bussed and its only a couple of miles you say. We had to drive 11 miles across town instead of walking 800 yards. Nobody was forced to come the other way. NOBODY!
Nobody was bussed in Greensboro. NOBODY!

When does that make sense? Susan Mendenhall and Dot were on my childs appeal committee that thought it it did. Do you know how humiliating it is to have to beg for you child to be able to walk to school and get the registered letter in the post after the appeal had been refused?

Over the last couple of years I have watched neighbor after neighbor take their children out of the public schools. I have seen neighbors move and take their kids out of the County or move up to Northwest.

Dot did what she wanted without listening to what the people wanted.

It has has been said before, the High Point Schools were NEVER as bad as Smith and Dudley.

It was doomed from the start. Doug, you also play a part in this mess for supporting it in the first place.

Back to the point. I think it would be very appropriate to rename High Point Central after Dot.

"Nobody in was bussed in Greensboro. NOBODY!"

I hate to pop your bubble, Anonymous, but there are such children. There have been for a long time.

The kids departing from Rankin Elementary are hauled to Eastern Middle/Eastern High; some are on the bus from north/northeast Greensboro to Gibsonville for over an hour each way, despite the fact that many of them can hear the band playing during Page home football games, not to mention the fact that they live much closer to Northeast (and now Northern) than they do to EGMS/EGHS.

This started as a dumb idea in the pre-merger GCS days, but there have been multiple opportunities to undo said dumb idea in the interim.

Many of these kids (and their parents) seem to feel a major degree of disconnect from their assigned middle/high schools. I don't blame them.

Jeff, Do they get bussed "past" their closest school?

I mean look out the window as you drive by?

There is a "back way" available to avoid such a situation, if you want to get technical about it.

Incidentally, Grimsley, Dudley, and possibly Smith are a shorter bus ride for Rankin students than Eastern is....for what it's worth.

And then there is the fact that kids in the Aycock neighborhood attend Grimsley rather than Dudley, which is their neighborhood school.

Now, if the BOE was serious about racial equality in schools, they would place the Aycock community in nearby Dudley. Of course, parents in that neighborhood wouldn't stand for being moved out of Grimsley -- and the Greensboro residents on the School Board would never bring it up.

I think that double standard is what irked a lot of North High Point folks during the whole "Choice Plan" debacle. Had there been a county-wide effort to diversify the schools, it might have been more acceptable. But having different sets of rules for one group of schools versus another is guaranteed to garner a negative response.

Doug, we are willing to forgive you on the basis you are a Central High parent. I mean, if somebody with power goes to any parent anywhere in the country and says "You know, we think our neighborhood school needs maybe what we think is a higher class of children to come here, and I'm going to deliver that", I mean, let's be honest, most parents would say: "You go Girl!". I mean, there might be some skeptical parents that would say; "Sure, and just where are you going to get them?" Other more smart-alecky ones might say "Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt", but most parents will cheer for you. One would have hoped however that in your position as an editor you would have looked a little closer as to what was actually going on.

I do want to thank you for being honest above and admitting if Central was still majority white there would never have been any talk on "choice plans etc".

Failing to realize that you might be biased, you crossed the line at the HPE, along with the
editorialist at the N&R (?Rip Van Johnson who thought this was progressive diversity thinking), of cheering Dot on in her quest to engineer the first ever forced-busing program in the country expressley designed, not for the benefit of black people, but for of a group of white people. You can't deny this.

I can remember your editorials cheering Dot on with statements like: "There will certain people who will not go along with this (I wonder why) but the board must be stong and persevere in their quest to balance the schools". I mean, egging Dot on is like going down to the local mental institution and sitting outside the fence and taunting the patients and shouting you're the devil and the end of the world is coming etc. or like poking a pit bull with a stick-Just totally irresponsible.

Like the NY Times did for not editorially scrutinizing the Iraq incursion, maybe you and Allen could maybe publish something...not really an apology, heaven forbid that, but maybe just a rationale or a retrospective analysis now that it looks like an era is coming to an end and there is a possiblity of moving on.

Skeet,

a "somewhat" apology from the editorial staff at the N&R is not needed. Not only do you know it will never happen but to hear them say it would just infuriate me even more. They KNOW they were wrong and I think they realized it LONG ago so to hear it this late in the game, after I've paid 4 years of private tuition would just makes monkey's fly off of my dead grandma's butt.

I don't start my day thinking, "Oh I wonder what the editorial staff at the N&R think about this"...in fact, I have found that whatever they think, I'm taking the opposite view. ...or, I go read the Rhino where I know I'll get some common sense.

Back to your patients Skeet, you know there's lots of crazies in High Point.

Why don't we name the Culinary Arts School at Central after Dot? After all she was so fond of the great magnet programs.

Just rename Emorywood, Dotwood.

I think Doug Clark is right that in some ways Dot has got a bad rap.

"The evil that men do lives long after them. The good is often interred with their bones."

Wm. Shakespeare "Julius Caesar"

"Pancho needs your prayers it's true, but say a few for Lefty too"

Townes Van Zandt "Pancho and Lefty".

Doug,

I am not going to disparage Mrs. Kearns although I often found myself diametrically opposed to many of her polices and statements. She represents a larger problem facing this region which you so starkly brought to light in your previous post.

Doug wrote "...city leaders were trying to save the life of High Point, and changing the school system was one means they pursued to do that. That's been a theme for more than two decades now. It drove merger, it drove redistricting, it drove the choice plan. Still, many of the inner-city schools are in danger of failing, and that is unhealthy for all of High Point."

The problem is that you, like Mrs. Kearns, view High Point as a separate entity and seem to ignore the fact that with a unified school district, a High Point centric view is counterproductive. Problems that are inherent in such a large district have been ignored in order to increase the funding for schools located in High Point. The magnet bonanza mentality that; "if there is a magnet program somewhere else in the county it must be replicated in High Point" has resulted in most of the schools located in "High Point proper" (as Dot Kearns calls the area south of 311) becoming magnet schools. To date, the myriad of magnet programs have not significantly helped poor and minority kids attending these schools. As for her replacement on the school board, I fear it will be more of the same, if not a High Point centric view, then more of the shameless promotion of the newly elected member's pet school.

BTB

BTB,

Thanks for sharing your view.

Great to hear from you. It's been a while.

You make a good point BTB- If you don't have a patron boardmember / protector, the next thing you know; somebody has you bent over the back of the couch, flailing way. Ask SW High pre-Garth, ask Smith. It's the GC/ Kearns-Mendenhall/ Hayes way and It's ridiculous and I think it's going to change. I think you may be selling this new crop of candidates short by saying they they would adopt this ethos.

Alan Duncan: Page.
Belton: Grimsley,
Amos: Dudley,
Darlene: NW.
Cooke is also a protector of Page isnt she?

I would say Smith; Deena but she doesnt give a hoot about Smith.

Doug,
I agree with your column and think the most comments against Dot are from the narrow minded ones who haven't a clue about the things Dot has really done. Thanks for your column. It really was right on the money. I would also like to see Gateway named for retired principal Dale Metz--talk about a community treasure!

I want my name put on the Dot Kearns comments I registered above, where I posted:
"Doug,
I agree with your column and think the most comments against Dot are from the narrow minded ones who haven't a clue about the things Dot has really done. Thanks for your column. It really was right on the money. I would also like to see Gateway named for retired principal Dale Metz--talk about a community treasure!"

As an activist in school issues, I can attest to the fact we would not be even close to the greatness we have, without Dot Kearns. In the past three months, I have met with Jim Hunt, Pricey Harrison, officials at The N.C. Public School Forum, The N.C. Association for the Advancement of Teaching and the NCAE. EVERYONE of those mentioned told me that Guilford was the best system in the state! The only people who do not know that, have either been sleeping, or pay little attention to what is REALLY going on. I commend Dot Kearns, and I think we have a lot to be thankful for that she helped provide!
Doug, thanks again for your column.
John

Thanks, John. You're brave.

I just want to express my thanks to Mr. Graham above. I can't express my great feelings of relief that there is somebody, somewhere in Guilford co. who really does know what's REALLY going on with the schools. Where've you been hiding? We could have really used having you around for the last six years. From now on, don't be a stranger.

ps I'm not sure Mr. Graham's declaration above that GCS is the best system in the state should cause laughter or crying.

Hey Doug, why don't you ever thank me for any of my posts?

Just wonderin'.

Since when do you need encouragement?

Doug,

Thanks, I've been busy with work but I want to take time to post more often.

Savage,

Au contraire, I hope that any newly elected school board member will keep the needs of the entire county in mind when setting policy however the current data available doesn't make me hopeful. Is there a current candidate you believe may act otherwise?

Mr. Graham,

You offer testimonials for your statement that GCS is the "best in the state". Have you ever looked at the data from the GCS website on how our schools are performing?

BTB