Icy Winds from 1984 Chill School Board Meeting
Students at Monday's meeting gave me great hope, followed by a speaker's proposal that chilled me to the bone
Monday’s Transylvania County School Board meeting was disturbing in a way I didn’t expect.
At their meeting last month, angry public speakers were energized by Madison Cawthorn in a small room with the Board seated a few yards away. The public speaking period was an hour long.
This time the Board sat on the Brevard High auditorium stage. The public had only 30 minutes to speak, before the Board reconsidered their mask policy as required by a recent North Carolina rule.
Masks are currently mandated indoors on school property, which might have accounted for the first few minutes when we heard a woman shouting from the audience over the Chair’s voice, followed by a pause in the video streaming.
I was encouraged by the first few public speakers, high school students making the case for public safety and a renewal of the Board’s mask policy.
Others spoke against mandated masks. One person demanded the Board’s acquiescence. She gave them some papers that included a photograph, apparently secretly taken, of one of the Board members not wearing a mask out in public.
No one objected.
But what I completely didn’t expect was the speaker who asked for online cameras in every classroom.
He listed some “benefits”. Teachers can show off teaching skills; administrators can evaluate and mentor teachers; there will be protection from acts of violence in the classroom, and from intruders’ disruptions. “Students will be on their best behavior because their parents may be watching,” he said. “Parents will learn what is being taught their children.”
Applause.
Is anyone else as blindsided by this as I am? It might account for the depression that came over me as I lasted out the meeting.
But we can have hope for our future. Remember the students at the beginning of the meeting who confidently spoke for public safety and for the responsibilities of citizenship.