My Experience at the Pitt County Board of Education meeting

October 4, 2021

Reporting on what happened last night at the Pitt County Board of Education, we had a good-sized group that met at 5:30 pm at the Kathy Taft Center on Allen Road. Only a few of us planned on speaking. We had to wait until 6 pm when they opened the doors to sign up. We had to fill out a form with our name/address/topic and zip code formality.

Several ended up not staying inside due to the face mask mandatory rules for all Pitt County School property and functions. This is very unfortunate because without the numbers, we have no influence. Anyway, there are many rules to follow for these meetings and there are police all over the place monitoring the meeting. As long as you go along with their rules, there is no issues or problems. You had to wear a face mask at all times during the meeting, even when speaking at your time. Each person wishing to speak and signed up gets three (3) minutes and each group signed up gets five (5) minutes. We chose to be individuals so that we could cover more topics. Reverend Kenneth Jones spoke of the curricula that is lacking in the basics of Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic, Sandy Moyer spoke of her concerns of CRT being taught in schools, another gentleman named Chris was very adamant about the masks mandate for his children, he is very against masks wholeheartedly, and I spoke on the matters of the board voting against having the parents a chance to speak at the August 16th special session. There was absolutely no reason for them voting against the special motion made by Benjie Forrest. Both Benjie and Worth and one other voted for opening the meeting for public comment, the others all voted against it....no reason for this behavior. I basically asked them not to ever vote against public comment, especially during a time like this. I also brought up the fact that the board completely ignored the parents’ survey that they sent out via email in July resulting in 38% participation and of this percent, 60+% of the parents voted for masks to be optional. That nearly 40% showed up to answer these questions means that they knew/were aware of/cared enough/ and were confident enough to vote for optional masks. They should have gone with these parents.

MY PERSONAL EXPERIENCE during the meeting: There was one female police officer that seemed to have zeroed in on me for some reason and kept her eye on me constantly...she caught me twice with my mask below my nose. The first time she had me follow her to the front of the building to lecture me on the rules, the second time, I was sitting quietly on my phone in the overflow room reading Telegram and the mask was under my nose so I could be comfortable and BREATHE, and she had me follow her to the front again, asking her where I was going, she said I was leaving. I told her no, that I was minding my own business, and sitting quietly, that I signed up to speak, that I had a right to speak!!! She said she would allow me to speak, but that I had to go outside the building and wait for her to come and escort me to through the building when my name was called to speak. She never came to get me, evidently my name was called, but no one knew I was thrown out of the building. WE, the group, fought for our right to speak, the officer was questioned, and she admitted that she didn’t do what she promised, so the board allowed me to speak.