RFP Staff
♦ Todd Paris, attorney, community organizer and creator Rural Rowan Save Our Schools Facebook page bursting with five thousand members, organized a public meeting in less than 24 hours after school Superintendent Moody blocked a meeting planned at Faith Elementary Thursday. Paris was grateful to the Rowan Fairgrounds Association and its leaders Johnny Love and Randall Barger for providing Thursday night’s venue.
The BoE Chairman Wagner’s threats of violence, meant to scare off participants, were nowhere to be seen in what was a peaceful family crowd of red shirted moms, kids, teachers, and dads.
Last evening’s floor was opened to the 150 or so cheering parents, teachers, community members, and sometimes even kindergarteners to speak. A child shall lead us! (Wasn’t little August Spencer a showstopper? And how about 6th grader Fransisco Serda? Awesome youngsters who don’t want to be bused many miles from home or line the pockets of Moody’s elite banker and real estate “friends” in Salisbury.)
The first speakers were beyond cute elementary school children who pleaded with Moody, Wagner and other BoE members not to close their school and wreck their education. Appearances by Wagner, from the overage-soaked $9 million dollar Wallace Educational Blunder-dome showed up yesterday on a number of TV stations predicting violence and mayhem. It was a clear attempt to diminish the turnout for this emergency meeting and disparage the reputations of the tax-payers in attendance. Of course, this was all necessitated by Superintendent Moody’s ban Wednesday of all such meetings on school property meant to quell dissent and to prevent dissention from “public servants”.
The community effort to rescue last night’s meeting did not stop Board Chairman Wagner from contacting Fair Association President Johnny Love to try to block this meeting as well. This violates citizen tax-payer’s first amendment rights to peaceably assemble and their freedom of speech once there. This is Rowan County U.S.A. not a third world dictatorship and we owe much thanks to the Fair Association for refusing to back down.
The more common themes among attendees was: We want our schools in our communities and we don’t want to bus our kids long distances or too poor performing schools. We sure don’t want our children to be lost in far larger classes. The Rowan Rural Save Our Schools folks are turned off to Moody, who helped herself to the domed castle on North Main with expensive new furniture, that is a ranking display of taxpayer waste and excessive overages.
Assisting with the meeting was Todd Paris, Andrew Poston and Michael Julian, potential candidates yet undecided about running against Chuck Hughes, Susan Cox and Josh Wagner, up for re-election this November. Mr. Poston’s rousing speech resulted in a standing ovation when he called for the defeat of these alleged “public servants.” Additional potential candidates have expressed interest as well, although not publically during the meeting.
Paris wowed the crowd when he said: “Tonight our goal is to put YOU in the driver’s seat!”
After an hour’s public comment, the group selected leaders and board members and voted to become a Political Action Committee to crush the re-election of Hughes, Wagner and Cox and to fire Superintendent Moody. Leaders were selected and the group will be moving forward in the days to come. Many more will join in as well.
An additional speaker was Veleria Levy a community spirit and political aspirant who pledged support for community schools.
This was grass roots democracy at the fundamental level and Wagner and Moody’s efforts to stifle dissent against their plans by abusing the powers granted to them only incited attendees to greater efforts to see them removed. They know from friendly leaks in school administration that the school board has every intention to vote though the consolidations that will shove their children on buses early in the morning and have them coming home in darkness. The school board is just biding their time until after the election to cast their consolidation plans in stone. The three up for reelection need to be overwhelmed at the polls and replaced with new school board members more interested in superior education and in cutting Moody loose so she can twiddle her fingers in her new Concord manse far from “trashy Rowan”. (Have you ever heard of a school superintendent who lived in another district?)
Holler praise once again for Johnny Love, Randall Barger and the members of the Fairgrounds Association for representing the values of superior local education and the American way.
Parents, taxpayers, and teachers are only beginning to acknowledge the current schoolboard and Superintendent Moody, who walks all over them and keeps them in the dark, do not represent sound education, the taxpayers, or the teachers. Moody and her school board takes orders from the elite real estate, banking, and construction families who laid waste to Salisbury for their own greedy betterment and who blocked economic development in the county for years.
Since Moody left the York County School District a mediocrity and was lured to Salisbury by the elite real estate and banking families who love overages and easy unobstructed money, the Rowan-Salisbury School System is recognized increasingly for badly performing schools, crime, and drugs and one of the major reasons why working class people are fleeing both Salisbury and Rowan. Closing those local schools will only increase the outbound stampede.
