Anyone who watched the Burke County Board of Education meeting on March 11 probably felt confused about if they were at a political rally or a Sunday morning hellfire and brimstone church sermon.
Turns out, it was both.
The meeting originally was scheduled for Monday, March 4, but was postponed until March 11 to avoid political campaigning by incumbents and candidates, according to a release by Burke County Public Schools. By meeting’s end, however, it was clear that effort was all for naught. It seemed the only concern many public speakers had was politicizing public education and, from there, decorum and civility quickly went out the door.
Ironically, it’s the first meeting of the board since it was made partisan with this year’s election.
Vague legalese from board attorney Chris Campbell started the meeting, with Campbell addressing two complaints filed about a board member without ever naming the board member. The board voted to proceed with an investigation into the unnamed member, and it was onto public comments.
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The podium-turned-pulpit was opened as many conservative evangelical Christians from near and far signed up to speak in opposition to some books in the school system’s media centers. Some identified as ordained ministers, while others held up a particular book to which they took offense, stirring the “flock†of book bashers to the point that “amens,†“hallelujahs†and the roar of standing ovations overtook the meeting.
Some stuck to rebuking the handful of what they deemed “pornographic†books they brought with them, while others blamed books for leading them to a life of sin. Overall, the claim was that it was these books that would corrupt the minds of all the students in Burke County Public Schools.
Local minister Paul Deal opened the political rhetoric by citing a comment Gov. Roy Cooper made during a recent visit to Forest Hill Elementary School where he called complaints about books in schools political myths. Deal went on to make a ludicrous claim that if any rapes occur in Burke County, it will be because of the board making these books accessible to children.
His was not the only ludicrous comment made that night. Another speaker compared board members who support leaving the books in schools to Hitler.
As the meeting went on, others used their five minutes to call out board member Jane Sohovich over heated exchanges amongst Burke County GOP members at their weekly gatherings on Feb. 23 and March 1.
Once the crowd turned its attention to Sohovich, resident Gina Walker-Bailey, who has served as chair of the Burke County Republican Women and the second vice chair for the Burke County GOP, took to the podium and the political rhetoric ramped up as she not only issued her complaints with Sohovich, but proceeded to call out other board members as liberals and RINOs without addressing them by name.
As the onslaught of grandstanding continued, more speakers felt emboldened to bring Cooper and politics into question regarding decisions of the local school board.
Before the public comment speaking ended, the board admittedly broke its own protocol for public speakers by allowing Paul Deal to speak for three more minutes. But this time, Deal didn’t use his own words – instead, he read a text message he purportedly received from current lieutenant governor and gubernatorial candidate Mark Robinson.
Regardless of the topics, though, most all of the public speakers had a few things in common – vocalizing their political agenda at a public meeting, grandstanding for their five minutes of fame and failure to get their facts straight.
To add more irony to the fire, multiple speakers called out media outlets, including The News Herald, accusing the newspaper of twisting their words.
One of those comments was from Walker-Bailey, who claimed The News Herald’s owner colluded with Sohovich to create an election website. When reporter Chrissy Murphy asked her about the claim after the meeting, Walker-Bailey identified the owner of another local publication, who is not associated with The News Herald.
At the end of a raucous public comments session, board member Leslie Ritchie Taylor made the most reasoned comments of the night regarding the book policy (although again by a vote by the board to alter procedure and respond to public comments).
Ritchie Taylor reminded the crowd that the board has instituted a procedure for issuing challenges over material in the media centers. Every challenge is thoroughly reviewed, and if a book is deemed too mature for students at any particular grade level, they are removed. She also noted that most every book mentioned by speakers had already been removed from schools after being challenged and reviewed.
We believe the board has created a reasonable policy for parents and guardians objecting to books in the school system. But those who challenge material need to remember that it’s not their job to regulate how other parents or guardians raise their children. One person’s beliefs doesn’t give them the right to override the beliefs of others.
To those aiming to silence the voices of people who have had different experiences than them – be it their race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or anything else – Helen Keller said it best in a letter to Adolf Hitler and German students before her books were burned in 1933.
“History has taught you nothing if you think you can kill ideas,†Keller wrote in an open letter. “Tyrants have tried to do that often before, and the ideas have risen up in their might and destroyed them.â€
Burke County Public Schools and Board of Education meetings are not the place for political rhetoric to be spewed, and it’s not a forum for a particular political or religious ideology.
Instead, they are places to be inclusive of others’ beliefs and rights and to take into consideration all of those who the school system serves.