October 25, 2007
The Kings Mountain Herald
Page 27
Lo li
LocAL NEWS
School Board candidates speak
EMILY WEAVER
eweaver@kingsmountainherald.com
Dr. Steven Thornburg, presi-
dent of Cleveland Community
College, asked the following
questions to school board candi-
dates at Thursday night's candi-
date forum at CCC. Candidates
Jack Hamrick, Terry McClain
and S. Dale Oliver were not in
attendance. The following
answers are not exact quotes
from the candidates, but instead
are synopses of their answers
given.
Q. One Cleveland County
school now requires school uni-
forms for all of its students.
What is your position on school
uniforms and should all district
schools require uniforms?
Burney Drake: School uniforms
should be a schoolhouse deci-
sion.
Bob Scoggins: The decision
should be left to the principal.
Shearra Miller: School uniforms
should be a school-level deci-
sion.
Connie Phifer Savell: School
uniforms should be a school-
based decision.
Tommy Greene: It should be a
school-based decision.
Richard Hooker: It should be a
school-based decision.
Kenneth Ledford: School uni-
forms should be based on the
school’s and community’s
choice.
Q. Some Cleveland County
Schools are grades K-5, K-3,
grades 4-5, grades 5-6, etc. What
is your position on a uniformed
Moore named
Rep. Tim Moore (R-Cleveland
County) has been appointed to
the Joint Legislative
Administrative Procedure
* Oversight Committee by the
Speaker of the House. This is the
oversight committee for admin-
istrative law issues. The com-
mittee mainly deals with the
Office. of Administrative
Hearings and the Rules Review
Commission, but all rules adopt-
ed or proposed by any state
agency are subject to review by
this committee. The committee
is charged with overseeing the
administrative rulemaking
process and the contested case
process in State government. As
‘rules. and regulations.
grade structure for all schools in
the district?
Shearra Miller: The decision of
unifying the county's grade
structure could come out of long-
range plans and could be deter-
mined at that time.
Burney Drake: This still boils
down to the individual school-
house’s and the community's
needs, but eventually this issue
may have to be addressed.
Richard Hooker: The county's
current configuration is working.
Connie Phifer Savell: Right
now, the separate grade struc-
tures are working, well. It may
have to be addressed in future
plans.
Bob Scoggins: “We're one school
system now and I'm in favor of
having uniformity across the
schools.”
Kenneth Ledford: The board
will have to look at this issue in
the future and if funds are avail-
able, he might consider conform-
ity in this matter.
Tommy Greene: They should
look at all of their data and see
which structure works the best to
see if they should have a uni-
formed structure in the future.
Q. Parents and the public are
sometimes confused about
where to go with district admin-
istrative offices located in mul-
tiple locations. What is your
position on moving to one cen-
tralized administrative facility?
Connie Phifer Savell: It would
be nice, but we need to look at
what is best for the students. The
issue will need to be looked at in
the future.
Tommy Greene: Right now, mul-
to committee
one of only ten House members
on the committee it is a presti-
gious appointment to a commit-
tee that yields a great deal of
power in state government.
Rep. Moore said: “I truly
appreciate this appointment by
the Speaker of the House. This
is a committee which has the
responsibility to ensure that state
agencies are adopting reasonable
I hear
concerns from constituents and
businesses about over-regulation
at times. I will approach the
state’s rulemaking authority
with my conservative ‘less gov-
ernment’ philosophy while serv-
ing on this committee.”
tiple locations are the best they
can do. One location may be
more efficient, but it would take
a sizeable amount of resources to
do that at this time.
Richard Hooker: We are utiliz-
ing the best of our facilities now
and a centralized school district
may be a possibility in the future.
Shearra Miller: It would be won-
derful to have a central office,
but that there is also a plus hav-
ing multiple locations.
Bob Scoggins: Proposed that
main administrators be located
in one building and administra-
tive assistants could stay where
they are. Or, he added, “move
everything into one building and
bring in some mobile classrooms
like we do at the schools when
we get overcrowded.”
Kenneth Ledford: “People
would like to have the ability to
go into their area, instead of hav-
ing to travel 20-30 miles to get to
the administrator or to have a
problem resolved.”
Burney Drake: “I would hope
that the long-range planning
board makes this a high priori-
ty.” He said one central office
would help communication and
collaboration. ;
Q. There appears to still be
some inequities in stipends for
teachers and administrators in
the district. What do you
believe should be done to
address this issue?
Tommy Greene: Teachers sup-
plements are now standardized
in addition to other salaries, but
added there are still some
inequities among the support
staff. “I think the board needs to
look at what those inequities are.
To deal with those inequities will
cost money...It will be somewhat
expensive, but I don’t think that
gives us an out.”
Kenneth Ledford: “I think we
need to standardize as much as
possible...When you pay one
person one amount and a person
doing the same job a different
amount you create problems.”
He said that he believes in equal
pay.
Burney Drake: The backbone of
any school is its support staff. “It
just leads to poor morale when
there are inequities in pay. The
last figure I saw was. that it
would cost the school system
$800,000, but eventually that
morale is going to catch up with
us.” He added that eventually
they are going to have to ask the
county commissioners to help
them fix this problem.
Richard Hooker: Said that they
support their teachers and they
need to correct as much as they
can, “realizing that there is a cost
to this. But because of this state
of accountability with more
demands on our teachers and
our schools, I think we need to
lead by example.”
Connie Phifer Savell: “From an
employee’s standpoint, I think
it’s critical for the board to
address this for morale issues, if
nothing else. We need to find
funds to fix this as soon as possi-
ble. People have been working
the same job and they need equal
pay...we're going to lose employ-
ees, if we don’t fix this.”
Shearra Miller: After merger,
one of the first things they did
was to equalize first-time
employees with their supple-
ments. “I honestly am very
ashamed that we were not able
to take care of our other employ-
ees in the same way.” She said
that this issue should be
addressed. “It is going to cost a
lot of money, but it’s necessary.”
Bob Scoggins: The answer to
this is a matter of transparency.
“There doesn’t need to be any
secrets to who makes what...If
everybody knows what the per-
son beside him makes then
somebody needs to explain the
difference. That goes for all dis-
cretionary spending by our
board and our administration.”
On November 6th - Let’s Re-Elect
An
&F
It’s All About
the Children...
And Their Future
For School Board
VISION ¢ LEADERSHIP « EXPERIENCE « ADVOCACY
Paid for by Richard Hooker for School Board