{"id":4978,"date":"2010-12-07T09:00:29","date_gmt":"2010-12-07T14:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.raleighpublicrecord.org\/?p=4978"},"modified":"2013-02-11T20:41:21","modified_gmt":"2013-02-12T01:41:21","slug":"commissioners-weigh-in-on-school-board-debate-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/news\/2010\/12\/07\/commissioners-weigh-in-on-school-board-debate-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Commissioners weigh in on school board debate (again)"},"content":{"rendered":"

During the Board of Commissioners first meeting with a newly elected Republican majority, it rescinded a previous resolution condemning the neighborhood schools plan as an act of re-segregation and requested that the school board begin budgeting and reporting its funding by \u201cpurpose and function.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stan Norwalk (D) introduced a resolution in April that called the creation of high poverty schools, as achieved by the school board’s neighborhood schools plan, detrimental to economic development and an act of re-segregation.<\/p>\n

The measure, which passed under the previous Democratic majority, was rescinded by Republicans in a 4-3 vote.<\/p>\n

Chair Paul Coble (R) said, \u201cRescinding this resolution is stepping back to the time before we got involved in the school board’s business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI attended segregated schools,\u201d cautioned commissioner James West (D) \u201cand we have to consider what traumatic effects that can have on minority children.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board’s newest member, Phil Matthews (R), countered, \u201cI also attended segregated schools and I wish that language had never been introduced into a resolution. I don’t think there is a racist ounce of blood in anyone on this board or on the Board of Education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before the chair abruptly forced a vote on the measure, commissioner Betty Lou Ward (D) added, \u201cWe’re always talking about economic development, economic development. If you were a company and saw this plan, you might hesitate in coming here.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPurpose and function\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Under the Board of Commissioners\u2019 last Republican majority a measure was briefly introduced that would require the school board to budget its money into a number of broad categories based on \u201cpurpose and function.\u201d<\/p>\n

If the school board did not come within 15 percent of its budget in a certain category, the Board of Commissioners would have leverage over that portion of funding in the future.<\/p>\n

But the measure was never fully enacted.<\/p>\n

School board chair Ron Margiotta<\/a> and John Tedesco, author of the neighborhood schools plan, have thrown their support behind the new measure which passed in a 6-1 vote. Stan Norwalk (D) was the only commissioner to vote against the request.<\/p>\n

The measure requests that the school board budget its money into 17 broad categories. Norwalk suggested that the categories are too obscure to make real sense to the public.<\/p>\n

Tedesco, who serves on the non-partisan school board, said, \u201cIf you give me $300 million, I think I owe you an answer on how I’m using it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quoting Warren Buffet, Tedesco added, \u201c\u2019When the tide goes out, you get to see who is swimming naked\u2019 and with these budget shortfalls a lot of people are going to be swimming naked.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

During the Board of Commissioners first meeting with a newly elected Republican majority, it rescinded a previous resolution condemning the neighborhood schools plan as an act of re-segregation and requested that the school board begin budgeting and reporting its funding by \u201cpurpose and function.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24024,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[34,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24024"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4978\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theraleighcommons.org\/raleighpublicrecord\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}