Press Release
♦ Rowan Rural Save Our Schools PAC voted Sunday night to endorse Andrew Poston, Alisha Byrd, and Michael Julian for Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education. All three candidates promised to protect and not close rural schools in Rowan County and to fight any resumption of the scenario posted on the RSS website this spring that would have shuttered to nine rural schools and domino bused over 5,000 elementary school students toward Salisbury. New school construction in a district that has excess capacity was projected to exceed 100 million dollars.
Alisha Byrd, Candidate for the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education:
Michael Julian (left) and Andrew Poston (right), Candidates for the Rowan-Salisbury Board of Education:
RRSOS was born on a group Facebook page this spring started by local attorney and community organizer Todd Paris, which in matter of 72 hours grew into a 5000 member closed page. This was in response to the BoE’s scenario. At several BoE meetings, numerous red-shirt clad members of RRSOS showed up and were able, by a narrow vote, to force the BoE to abandon this plan for now. The group’s subsequent protests in western Rowan were cited as a major reason the BoE moved the site of West Consolidated Elementary away from a natural gas power plant that caught fire.
When asked for a comment, PAC President Todd Paris said, “There are more issues than the “Nightmare Scenario” coming back next year. For instance a former county Commission member told me he never saw an RSS Budget or budget audit the entire time he was on the commission. It’s not on the RSS website. Josh Wagner brags about transparency because they started video of their meetings, but where’s the budget?”
In addition, we spend millions on Superintendent Moody’s “One on One” take home Apple computer scheme for all the children in the county and the whole district still averages a “D.”
Incumbent Republican BoE members have the “home field advantage” this year as the Rowan GOP Executive Committee voted to put incumbent’s Cox, Hughes and Wagner on the palm card handed out at the polls and pass on Republicans Julian and Poston. Julian and Poston have “cried foul,” but were unable to secure the votes needed to keep the local party out of this race.
Chuck Hughes and Josh Wagner reminded voters that after protests started, that they voted down the plan that made the public so upset. Susan Cox still voted to keep it.
Approximately .50 cents out of the .65 cent tax rate in the county goes to education. Perhaps the staff at RSS needs to release those budgets and audits, at least for the past few years. Let’s see what, if anything, they are hiding.
