Not all schools equal size
After Harris Regional Hospital decided last month to no longer provide athletic trainers for Cherokee County Schools, the upcoming football seasons for Andrews and Murphy high schools were at risk. The games – and even practices – cannot be played without appropriate medical personnel at the field – and for good reason, as football is a high-contact sport.
Fortunately, the Cherokee County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved using sales tax proceeds to fund the positions for one year. That came after the Cherokee County Board of Education voted to seek $153,552 from schools-focused quarter-cent sales tax revenues to pay for salary and benefits for two athletic trainer positions.
Yet, in the original vote, school board Chair Shannon Raper expressed concerns about parity between Andrews and Murphy high schools, which benefit from the athletic trainers, and Hiwassee Dam High School, which does not offer football or wrestling and would not have a trainer. As a result, she said no.
If three other board members had agreed with her and stuck to it, the positions would not be funded – and the most popular sport in the county would be in question. Why? Because Hiwassee Dam wasn’t benefiting from it, too.
The simple truth is Murphy is larger than Andrews and Hiwassee Dam high schools put together, so things are never going to be completely equal; in fact, trying to do so could discriminate against Murphy students. While candidates run by district in Cherokee County, they are voted on countywide, which means they represent every person in the county – not just the people in one district.
Clearing barrels here?
In light of assistant chief David Southards’ accidental shooting on May 25 outside of the Andrews Police Department, perhaps local law enforcement needs to take a lesson from the U.S. military to avoid future mishaps.
The military uses “clearing barrels” as a security check for soldiers. By placing their weapon inside such a barrel and clearing it, they make sure there are no live rounds inside, alleviating the risk of an accidental discharge and injury.
Thankfully, other than getting poked fun of by his fellow officers, Southards is recovering well from the incident. Next time, we might not be so fortunate.
Power rates going up, up
Duke Energy Progress, which serves 1.7 million customers in eastern Cherokee County and beyond, has proposed to raise rates on consumers and businesses by 4.3 percent at the end of the year. The company, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, received an 8.4 percent increase last year.
If approved by the state, the new rate hike would go into effect Dec. 1. The total monthly impact for a residential customer using 1,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity would be an increase of $5.98.
Coming after a year when local service has been spotty, particularly in downtown Andrews, customers deserve a more consistent power supply – especially when they’re paying a higher price for it.
Book bans must stop
A seventh- and eighth-grade English teacher in Charlotte is the latest casualty of the book-banning hysteria sweeping U.S. education, according to a lawsuit filed against Charlotte Secondary School last week.
The suit filed by attorneys for Markayle Gray claims Charlotte Secondary fired Gray on Feb. 2 after some white parents complained about teaching the novel Dear Martin to his seventh-grade honors students as part of his class’ Black History Month activities. Approved by school administrators, Dear Martin is about a black teenager who was a victim of racial profiling by law enforcement.
“White parents complained that the critically acclaimed novel injected what they regarded as unwelcome political views on systemic racial inequality into their children’s classroom,” according to the suit. Yet, even though she recommended reading Dear Martin, Principal Keisha Rock apparently saw firing Gray as the only way to avoid political pressure after the N.C. House of Representatives passed a bill in March that would restrict how teachers can discuss racial topics.
If this is what teaching is going to be like in coming years, good luck getting enough young people to sign up for it. We learn when we are forced to confront things we didn’t know before, and deliberately dumbing down our classrooms to the lowest common parental denominator will stop education in its tracks.
– Publisher David Brown