Deborah Jackson, Rockwell, NC
♦I am following the mediation process between the Rowan County Commissioners and the Rowan-Salisbury School System with interest. I am heartened our commissioners are watching out for both the taxpayers and for actual education. It is quite evident that Rowan County is contributing more than its fair share to public education. I am disgusted with school board chairman Richard Miller’s belligerent demands that the county fund what the state and federal government is not funding. Chairman Jim Sides is 100% correct when he stated in the mediation’s opening session that the School Board’s dispute should be aimed at the state. He argued that state statutes direct the legislature to fund the school operations and the county to fund capital needs. Sides strengthened the commissioner’s case by pointing out that out of 115 state school systems, the Rowan Salisbury school system was the 38th highest in per pupil funding and 17th highest in total local funding. Based on per capita income, Rowan County was in 60th place in its ability to fund its school system. Grand slam for Chairman Sides!
A larger question is not being raised so far in this mediation and that is: Are we really funding education or are we feathering bureaucratic nests? Where is the Rowan-Salisbury School System actually spending its money? Is the School administration a wise steward of school money? Are they investing in the most important areas of education such as our teachers, classrooms, and school houses–our children? Or are they caught up in frivolous expenditures, waste, and feathering their own nests?
We know that School Superintendent Grissom gets paid more than the governor of this state and for a poorly performing school system according to the most recent NC ABC Report Card. We know the school board demands a posh and grossly over-priced Taj Mahal on South Main in Salisbury when many schools in the school system are badly in need of repair or replacement. This proposed Taj Mahal has nothing to do with education, but more to do with being a pawn in image hungry downtown Salisbury’s Master Plan where only “friends” profit and the citizens of Rowan County are left holding the bag. Does our education system really require a ten million dollar Taj Mahal on Main Street where few people shop in the pricey trinket and junk shops? Seriously a Taj Mahal is unrequired in a city where over 10% of its inhabitants are incarcerated and 22.4% of its inhabitants dwell in poverty? In Salisbury history is defined as the age of a decrepit building and not for actual historical activity. Shallow?
I am glad that the LGC will reject the 20 year lease and will send the Taj Mahal back to the county commissioners who will say no and protect real education and our children from financial abuse.
Rowan-Salisbury school system children are still attending class in cramped trailers. Teachers are poorly paid. Yet the school system squanders money on hundreds of IPADs, left rotting in warehouses. These hundreds of IPADs apparently are only to garner meaningless technology awards. School system properties and defunct school buildings sit idly by year after year that could be sold off or put to better use. A well-run school system would have already sold these properties and buildings off and used the money to fund needed projects.
Rowan-Salisbury Schools poor education is not due to a lack of funding. On the contrary, our school system is already well-funded save for the reduced funding by the state and federal governments. What is needed is a new school superintendent who will not squander money and make far better use of the great wealth already being pumped into school system by the taxpayers of Rowan County.
