Artless Dodgers

They also dodged all questions posed to them about the Hyde County Schools budget, why art funding was cut, and why the board members need a raise.

Nine Ocracoke community members spoke during the public comment period at Tuesday’s meeting of the Hyde County board of Education. (Full disclosure: I was one of them. I was at the meeting as both a journalist and a parent/protester.) They came to show their support for art education and to ask that the art program be reinstated at Ocracoke School. (For background on these issues, click here.) They also expressed disappointment that in this time of austerity for the school budget, the school board members have decided to take some extra money from the school budget and double their own pay.

Hyde County Board of Education chairperson Thomas Whitaker is disappointed, too.  It appears that his board is unpopular on Ocracoke, and that’s just not fair.

“When we completed the capital building fund plan and built a new [elementary] building on Ocracoke, everybody was appreciating what we’d done,” he said. “A few years later, we went to the first ballgame in the new Ocracoke gym and got a standing ovation." 

In what seemed a small victory for the Ocracokers, they had, at least, managed to provoke a response out of Whitaker. (Last month, all five board members made no effort to appear to have heard any of the public comments.) Still, Whitaker was the only one who responded at Tuesday’s meeting, and his comments ran the gamut from defensive to buck-passing to obfuscating to pouty.

Oh, but he did apologize – to Hyde County Schools superintendent Randolph Latimore, for “taking hits” on decisions made by the school board. (You can’t make this stuff up. Read about the lawsuit against Latimore by his former employer. He is alleged to have taken $200,000 from that school district that's not his.) Latimore worked hard to fight for small school supplemental funding, Whitaker explained. He went to meetings in Raleigh and met with NC Senator Paul Tine to develop the formula for state funds. (True, but isn’t that his job? We pay him $118,000 a year – the highest salary per pupil of any superintendent in North Carolina.) Whitaker said, “We would be in bad shape without Paul Tine and Dr. Latimore.” Without arguing for or against his point, we can at least agree that it has absolutely nothing to do with raises for school board members.

Whitaker then blamed the school district’s money and budget problems on the county commissioners and the state, both of which have decreased funding to Hyde County Schools. 

“We need to get money back from the county government and get it restored to 2009 levels,” he said. “We’ve got to keep our eye on Raleigh.” Also true. And what about those raises?

In the only oblique reference Whitaker made to the question of lining his and his fellow board members’ pockets (and the extra 30K that would pay for it), he said, “We’re fighting over small change.”

“We can’t keep throwing stones at each other,” he added. “It’s not going to work that way.” 

As Latimore tried to steer the meeting back to the agenda, Whitaker mumbled that he wished someone would report “news about what’s going on that’s good. I was just in Greenville and everyone was talking about our early college [program].” 

Ocracoke citizens asked to be allowed to respond to Whitaker comments and ask further questions, but they were denied as the public comment period was over until next month.

Here’s a synopsis of the public comment period (which happened before Whitaker made the comments reported above):

Ruth Fordon spoke about how important art is for brain development and mental health (she’s both a former teacher and a counselor), and Ken Debarth invoked his medical education to explain more about brain development. Ignoring the fact that Tarheels don’t care how you did it up North, Ken also mentioned that when he served on the school board in the smallest, poorest county in New York that the board members were never reimbursed for any costs. Tara Gray said she was lucky to grow up getting an art education (not on Ocracoke) because she makes her living in the arts, and Nancy Leach stated that arts are everywhere and our children deserve an art education. Mickey Baker told the board, “Stop being selfish – you’re setting a bad example for the children.” Former teacher Joelle LeBlanc pointed out that most of the commenters weren’t even parents, and that art at Ocracoke School is important to all community members. “There has to be a way to find funding,” she said. Beverly Meeker spoke about art education producing well-rounded people with good life and work skills, who can visualize new concepts and constructions, and find satisfaction in the arts throughout their lives. I praised the many, many volunteers on Ocracoke who go to many, many board meetings and never expect to be paid, specifically the boards of Ocracoke Alive (which is providing an art program to Ocracoke School students this winter and fundraising $8000 to do it) and Ocracoke Youth Center (which was denied a request for $10,000 from the school board to help build the ballfield at Ocracoke Community Park.)

Kelley Shinn wants to see a Hyde County Schools budget, and said she was “appalled at the audacity” of the school board persisting in their pursuit of a raise after Ocracoke citizens protested at last month’s school board meeting. “It’s unethical,” she said, and went so far as to call it corruption, as defined by the academician Jacques Hallak, whose resume surpasses anyone’s on the Hyde County Schools Board of Education.

Also, one parent from the Mattamuskeet side also spoke. Commercial fisherman Michael Bartelle was at his first ever school board meeting because his daughter was being presented with (ironically) an art award. He also has a son who used to play in the band when Mattamuskeet had a music program. “If we can’t afford art and music,” he asked, “How can you afford to give yourselves a raise?” Mr. Bartelle got the applause from Ocracoke that Whitaker remembers so wistfully.

Note: There's no accompanying photo or artwork on this story because I realized, as I surfed Google images, that anything I would post would be art of some kind. Perhaps the lack of any artwork at all is a better statement. At least you can say that I'm willing to sacrifice the front page of the Current to prove a point….

Note #2: Giving themselves a raise is not up to the school board; the Hyde County commissioners are the deciders, and could vote on it as early as their February 2nd meeting. If you would like to let the commissioners know how you feel, you can find their contact information here. 

To contact Board of Education members, click here.