The Zombie Apocalypse: Governor Cooper’s Education State of Emergency

Reuel Sample: Welcome to the NHC GOP podcast. I’m Reuel Sample here in North Carolina, where we have declared a state of emergency over public education. A state of emergency usually reserved for hurricanes, storms, snowfalls, a state of emergency over public education. Here to talk about it is Josie Barnhart and Pete Wildeboer from the New Hanover County Board of Education. Josie, Pete, thanks for joining us tonight.

Pete Wildeboer: Thanks, Mr. Sample. Appreciate your time.

Reuel Sample: Pete, what’s going on? This is the zombie apocalypse here. Pete, what’s going on with this, this this state of emergency from Governor Cooper?

An Overreach of Power and Fear

Pete Wildeboer: Well, we do all with all due respect to the the office of governor, I don’t see this as an educational state of emergency. I’ll be honest. I think that, yes, we all would agree that we want to improve education for every student, all our students. Absolutely. 100%. But, you know, I see the bills that he has mentioned, which we’ll talk about in a little bit as being very positive, actually improving education for our students. And he’s got a, oh, my goodness, this is the worst thing ever. And you have to stop, you know, these crazy legislators from doing what they what they were elected to do. And, boy, I tell you, I just don’t agree. I cannot agree with all due respect to his office. You know, I think that we at New Hanover County have done some great have made some great inroads to improve education for our students. Again, we’re not finished. We need we need to do more and more and more to to do it. And we’ve all been very working very, very hard. Miss Barnhart, myself and the rest of the board are working very hard to improve the education for our students. But state of emergency, because we’re doing some positive things, our senators and legislators are doing some positive things to improve education for our students. I don’t agree.

Reuel Sample: Jose, state of emergency. I mean, this is just this is just grandstanding.

Jose Barnhart: Is it’s an overstep of power to help create fear and instill just a divisiveness that people have said we’re tired of politicians just being so divisive. And so rather than having a conversation about the content, about ways that we could potentially, you know, express desire for changes in these bills, what we’re saying is all of these together is going to ruin public education, and that’s not the case. I we have a new committee. It’s the legislative committee, and I’m the chairperson for that. And we were able to go through some of the bills and we were able to talk about some of the ways that we want to focus on how we can improve New Hanover County schools so that we have no priority schools and no failing students. And I’m excited I’m going to be presenting some changes at the June meeting to change the makeup of the legislative committee so that we can create our own legislative agenda and then advocate better on behalf of our students here in public schools in New Hanover County and for our staff. And so it’s really what it is, is allowing for leadership to step up and share where the concerns are is not a bad thing. And understanding that there is a specific role that education and schools play, and that’s to educate our children. And so we need to get back to having the conversations about the content versus just pretending that we’re, you know, it’s all it’s all blown loose.

SB 49 Parental Bill of Rights

Reuel Sample: This is some pretty strong language. Pete. Jose, this is in states of emergencies. Governors can take massive amounts of power away from elected officials to put policies in. We saw during COVID, we we see it during storms. Now, let’s be fair. Governor Cooper isn’t doing a power grab here. But this kind of stuff, this kind of wording is dangerous. Let’s talk about his number one goal here. The number one thing that he was he was pointing out in terms of things that we should oppose is the SB 49 bill that was passed by the Senate on parents rights. Both of you ran on increasing parents rights. Pete, what is this bill about?

Pete Wildeboer: Well, Senator Lee, Jose, I want to highlight that we were able to go up as, as Ms.. Barnhart mentioned, up and actually talk to Senator Lee and others about about this very bill and how important it is, how vital it is, how positive it is. You know, parents are our partners and they need to be our partners in educating our children. It shouldn’t be the school, does it? It shouldn’t be the parents do it. It should be everyone working together. And that’s what this bill is all about, is bringing everyone back together so that giving parents back, you know, a certain amount of rights that they need. I mean, we’ve done some of the same things here. Ms. Barnhart also sits on our policy committee chairs that and has done some great things in that area to to bring parents rights back into the forefront. We need to be as a former principal, we always worked very closely with our parents. It’s vital, you know, who loves their children more? Teachers definitely love the children that they work with. Principals do. But you know who loves them more than their parents And their parents want their very best, very best for them. So we want to work hand in hand with our parents in New Hanover County schools. But it needs to be a statewide effort to work together. And that’s what this this bill does, is it works together, helps us to to see and to work together and to to really look at all the various pieces. If anyone has not read that that bill state Bill 49, I would advise you to do so because it’s you know, once, you know, you take the time to look at the things that the governor has brought up and you say, my goodness, you know, this is this is good. This is a good thing for our students. But he you know, he’s adamantly opposed to it, obviously.

Reuel Sample: Jose, one of the things that you ran on was parental bill of rights, but you also ran on the whole idea that it can’t be an us versus them. As as Pete said, is that it is all of you working together. Why do Democrats fear this whole idea of parents getting involved in the school district? And how are you encouraging that kind of cooperation here in New Hanover County?

Jose Barnhart: And I appreciate the question Reuel. So for me, that was something that I was frustrated with because that’s my background is I’m an educator and I’m a mom and my kids are in the public school system. And so understanding that we should be included, we should be informed, we should be able to have access. Things like this are just common sense things that New Hanover County is absolutely taking the steps. One of the things that we’ve recently passed as a board is we have taken basically I wouldn’t say the exact verbiage of the Parents Bill of Rights with the surveys, but very similar. We created a window viewing that parents have access to view any surveys that are given. We have expanded the protected topics to not just be about federal surveys, but for state and for local surveys as well. And those include mental health, those include sexual content, those include political content, things like that, just common things that parents might have a red flag about of saying, what are you asking my kids about? Tell me about. And so we just passed that this last meeting that that is a required consent in now period. And then another thing, another form of accountability that we added and here locally was we have put in the caveat whatever central office is going to be implementing from the changes of these surveys, it’s going to come back before the board to inform us that this is what came out of those surveys, because I think that was kind of the loop disconnect that I saw of watching these meetings and subcommittee meetings and having conversations with people as there wasn’t really this full connection of what was why this was happening and what we were actually doing with it.

Jose Barnhart: And so I want to kind of help loop that in. And sometimes people who know what they’re doing, they talk to each other a lot, but then they don’t dispel the information. And so really, these subcommittee meetings that we’re able to dive into some of these policies and have these in-depth conversations, we’re giving the public access because everything is everything is recorded, everything is viewed. And I know recently to the suspension policy came up 4351, and so it was saying to have a person present. And if you look at the policy, it was talking about reasonable attempts, but it was not saying that parents were not being contacted. It very clearly said a point of contact could be a phone call in a conversation with a parent over the phone versus mandating a parent to come to the building. And I was like, okay, well, this provides some a bigger picture for me because, you know, when the arguments are being said of like, oh, parents aren’t involved and you know, you kind of go red flag is like, we need to have a conversation about this. Like, we absolutely don’t need to have a suspended kid and not be contacting parents.

Jose Barnhart: And so really just kind of coming full circle about what that looks like. I am very passionate. I would wholeheartedly be willing to openly support Senate Bill 49. Personally, we have not done it publicly as a board, so I can’t speak on behalf of the board for this, but there are so many caveats in here that it just makes sense. Having access to curriculum and again was something that New Hanover County is doing, is having that access to curriculum. That’s one of Dr. Faust’ saying when he came in, he wanted to streamline that all the students, if you were in first grade, were learning the same content. Okay. Well, if we’re all learning the same content, then we should be able to have access to it and just a universal website. And so that’s those are steps. Those are going to be continued things that we need to improve upon and upload and get better. But it’s going to be able to support and benefit our students at home because as a parent now I have access to the content that my kids are learning, potentially extension videos and stuff of teachers telling me, showing me how they’re teaching my kid and then I can support them with their homework at home. So this is really going to be a great thing and a partnership and rebuilding that trust and transparency that is just common sense stuff that we need to focus on.

Pete Wildeboer: And if I could add to that real quickly, I’m just going to add real quickly that that was one of the few things I was able to do in my first two years was actually get the curriculum put up on the website. So because a lot of parents would reach out to me and said, you know what? How can I find out what my my child is learning in class? And so we did get that put on, you know, with the old board. And so it’s it’s a good thing. And I think, you know, as Miss Barnhart said, I think the more transparency we can have, the better off we are. Parents need to know what their what’s going on in their school. You know, and we’ve said time and time again, we’ve asked them to reach out to the schools. But it is a two way street. I mean, parents need to be informed also, you know, and that’s the same kind of thing with the board. We’ve done things like having town halls and again, we’re going to say it every time. We’d love to have more participation by parents and community members at those town halls or different things. I think we may actually look at the July meeting and do a different format. But, you know, we just really do want to hear from parents and, you know, we want to be able to have those open conversations about important things.

Jose Barnhart: Melissa and myself, we’ve both brought up the idea of interpreters and so having Spanish interpreters, deaf interpreters. And so that’s something. That’s great about YouTube is that it is easily translated. But then we talked about the new call to audience format of potentially asking if I needed an interpreter, could the county provide that for me? Because we know when we talk about barriers to learning, that’s the things that we should be discussing. It should be, okay, well, here’s a disconnect. Well, what is it? Well, I don’t speak Spanish, but I have a student who’s whose parents only speak Spanish. Well, I don’t speak Ukraine, but I have students who speak who I don’t even know that that example, but or Arabic or whatever it is. And so acknowledging the fact that we do have a variety of needs with our community and so understanding with the most feasibility that we can, breaking down those barriers.

Reuel Sample: Pete, you’ve been doing this a long time. I won’t say how long, but you probably started when parents were involved in schools. I remember going to school and you got in trouble in school. It was worse going home.

Pete Wildeboer: Oh, absolutely.

Reuel Sample: And you you you brought your your report card home to get signed If something happened at school, your parents were all over it. And you have seen this cycle where parents are more and more isolated from their kids. And now we’re seeing a cycle where parents are getting back involved with their kids. What has been your experience with the parents here in New Hanover County as this control, this involvement comes back? And are they responding well to your initiatives both here in the county and at the state level?

Pete Wildeboer: I would say absolutely. I think, you know, and I don’t think the pandemic was was very good for much of anything. But I think the one thing it did bring out was parents became more and more involved because they had more time. They saw what was going on. They were wondering what was going on. So it did bring them a new insight. They were able to see and wonder and find out, which I think is, you know, that’s about the only thing I can say good about the pandemic, But that was a very good thing. So, I mean, I really think it is it’s vital. I think parents are a lot more involved. And I agree with you 100%. As a as a young man myself, back in my day, we were, you know, boy, I tell you, if I got in trouble, my dad and I had a serious conversation, you know, But then as a teacher and then later as a principal, you know, there was there were some parents that were like, yeah, he’s yours or she’s yours. You know, you take care of him at school. And, you know, I got, you know, I’m working my job or whatever else. And, you know, and there is a fine line that a lot of parents have to especially single parents, may have to run between between taking care of their children and, you know, so there’s been more and more emphasis on the school taking a lot of that that lead. But I think now we’ve really seen that, as you say, that circle come back where parents are very involved, very concerned. Of course, I don’t think there was ever a time they didn’t want the best for their children.

Pete Wildeboer: But it’s also a matter of rebuilding the trust. You know, parents, you know, when when I was a child anyway, I can say that, you know, as you said, if if the teacher said it, it was the truth. And that was the end of that story. And there’s been an erosion of that, that trust over the years. And I think we’re, you know, taking some some very firm and important steps to rebuild that trust, you know, and it’s not something that’s going to, you know, a light switch turns on and it changes in a day. But I think we need to do everything we can. I think this this bill, Senate Bill 49, is a big part of that. I think it’s a vital thing to to say, parents, you are important. You are, you know, the a vital link, if not more, in the education of your children. And we want that partnership going back again. Just real quickly to, you know, my my time as principal boy, I tell you, if we didn’t have our parents and their involvement, we would not have, you know, changed that that school was was a was not a successful school. When I took it over. And I had very little to do with changing it around, the teachers were phenomenal. But we did reach out to our parents and got a lot of support in a lot of ways from parents, whether it be tutoring, whether it be financial, whether it be whatever it was. And, you know, that’s what we need. We need that partnership across the board in each every in every school.

Pete Wildeboer: And just one other quick thing and I’ll let Jose speak. But, you know, it’s amazing just the difference. You know, I’ve been at every level from pre-K all the way up to early college, and it’s just amazing the difference. You know, it’s almost like, you know, elementary parents are extremely involved and they have been for a long time. Middle school. You start seeing that, you know, hands off, hands off, hands off high school, you know? Yep. I think they’re in school today. I’m not really sure, you know, that kind of thing. And I think it’s it’s important for parents to to to realize that they are important each and every day and at at every level. It really is, whether it’s just, you know, calling the teacher and checking in with the teacher at the high school level or. You know, going to the parent conferences and, you know, you know, I’ll be honest as as a former coach, we also had times that, you know, teachers and parents go into ball games, you know, that you could see the difference in a child. You know, the way they carry themselves on the field or on a court because mom and dad were there or their teacher showed up to pat them on the back and took an interest in them. So, you know, I just had my son graduate from from medical school. And, you know, I’m bragging a little bit on that. But he was I think he would have been mortified if we hadn’t shown up to his graduation. So, you know, parents, please, please understand, you are important to your children every day.

NC House Bill 187: Equality in Education

Reuel Sample: Jose, I’m going to move on to another another bill that’s coming up. And that one that we were just talking about with Senate Bill 49. It’s passed the Senate. It’s got to go through the House. And so please call your local legislators and tell them to get that thing passed. But the next one that is on the list and it’s it’s being opposed by by the governor is House Bill one. I’m sorry my my glasses are going my house bill 187 where it talks about equality in education and it’s basically saying that all persons are equal and shouldn’t be taught that one group is worse or better than the other. There’s more that’s going on in that. We’re basically talking about critical race theory and other things that are going. Jose, can you talk about House Bill 187 a little bit?

Jose Barnhart: Yeah. And to kind of cap up 49, I feel like the mutual respect is what what the premise of most of these bills we’re discussing tonight is reestablishing that mutual respect of understanding that parents have boundaries, understanding that teachers have boundaries, and just clearly defining the framework so that everybody is on the same page. And so the fact. You know, a weird world that we live in. The fact that this is controversial is crazy. But I brought this up because in the summer of 2021, the state, NC DPI changed the standards for history and what they did and passed by a very slim margin. It was about, I think 53% passed the change and the standards became subjective. And when you have subjective interpretations and subjective teachings of history, rather than saying teach about this content, teach about this war, teach about this, whatever you’re saying, teach about a time when a battle created a change in your state and your state, whatever. So then you could pick what battle that looks like, what revolution, what, whatever. And it became. Any time you allow for interpretive teaching, what you’re doing is you’re opening the door for stepping over boundaries. And so this spawns from we do I would love to say the majority of teachers are good people and who are accountable. But then you do have people who are willing to push the boundaries and who are willing to be those activist teachers. And this one allows us to redefine and reestablish. What is your role as a teacher? You’re allowed to have your own personal beliefs. You’re allowed to have your own religious beliefs, your political beliefs, whatever you feel necessary. But bringing it into the classroom and sharing that as truth for your students should not be allowed.

Jose Barnhart: And that is what this bill, I think essentially does. It says, you know, we’re not going to sit here and pick apart different pieces. And I use history because I know that’s been my prevalent in my mind. I’d love to see those standards change back. But I digress. But that is it’s just laying that groundwork of what that expectation is for you as a classroom teacher. And then also tells parents that when you are hearing and receiving content from your students that don’t lay this framework, then to have that framework to say, I’m a I’m a parent, but I’m frustrated with this teacher because they’re overstepping their boundaries. And so and I think that’s kind of what Senate Bill 2049 was kind of doing as well, is saying, parents, this is the groundwork. So when you see something that shouldn’t be happening, you are allowed to speak up and say something and you’re not going to be penalized for doing that. Your child shouldn’t be targeted for, you know, objecting to a course content or something. So again, this is one of those bills that I find it. Just I’m a little bit dumbfounded that we even have to just come to this. . But it’s because there has been people who have utilized their position in the education realm to push their belief system. And we should not be allowing that. As far as accountability piece, as us as board of Education, as our central office staff, as they’re laying, we need to set that clear expectation. And I think that’s something that we’re trying to do here in New Hanover.

Reuel Sample: It’s a state of emergency, though, Jose. It’s a state of emergency. Pete, Did we really have teachers trying to teach the idea here in New Hanover County that one group of people is better than the other or one group of people automatically oppresses another group of people even though they don’t think they’re doing it. And what have we what have we done to stop that?

Pete Wildeboer: Well, um, have we. Are there any teachers that are doing that? I’m sure there are. We’ve had our superintendent say that we’re definitely not teaching, that we’re not teaching that, um, we look just, just to our south and we look at Brunswick County. The passed a policy saying we will not teach this. So, you know, we’ve had two bills in front of the governor prior to this bill, you know, prior to 187 that the governor vetoed. So obviously, it is happening in the state of North Carolina. Um, you know what happens in the school building ultimately? You know, as a former principal, I’ve said that four times tonight. But, you know, ultimately it’s in the hands of the principal. So the principal, you know, the buck stopped in my office. And, you know, ultimately it ultimately it stops at the superintendents office, but it also stops at the Board of Education. So one of the things, you know, that we do is we talk to principals, we talk to, to educators, we talk to, you know, we hear from parents. You know, I’ve had parents reach out to me that at such and such a school, this is going on. And I don’t don’t sit on that. I go through the proper channels. I share it with the superintendent. I share it with the principal, and then I wait to hear a response. So it’s also not a situation a lot of folks, you know well, you know, you give it to the superintendent and and I’m not saying that that’s not happened in the past. I can’t speak about other boards. But this board I can say, you know, we do we have a procedure that we hear back. And then we were able to follow up and say, what in the world, you know, if it continues to go on? I’ve not heard a lot of it, but I have heard some, I’ll be honest, you know, especially one one school, one particular school.

Pete Wildeboer: And the superintendent, you had a long discussion about what was going on at that school. And I have not heard any more recently about that, that situation. So am I am I going to say it absolutely is not happening in any school? No. But it is something that we are looking at. This bill attacks it and looks at it. We as a board are looking at it and we’re not sitting on our thumbs saying, well, it’s not happening. Uh, we’re trying to make sure it doesn’t happen. But, you know, we have a lot of schools, so we know, again, reach out to parents. If you have a problem, you have concern. Please reach out to the Board of Education. Please reach out. I would say first, please reach out to your principal, Reach out to the teacher, say, hey, I have a concern about this. If you don’t get the problem taken care of at that level, then reach out to the superintendent, then reach out. You know, if again, you’re still not getting any satisfaction or any answers, then, you know, bring it to our attention. And, you know, because that’s what we’re going to do is we’ll bring it back to the superintendent. But please understand, it’s not a situation that we give it to him and say, oh, that’s good. You know, we do follow up and try to make sure that there is a you know, that it’s not happening. And on top of that, we do try to find out if there are answers, you know, and that way that we can follow up and make sure that we do our job.

NC House Bill 17:  Statewide Board of Education

Reuel Sample: The other thing that the governor is asking us to oppose in this state of emergency is this whole idea of electing the statewide you can call it the statewide school board, is that currently the school board is appointed by the governor. And what he is saying is that by making this an elected position, it’s putting politics into a school board when in reality, politics are already in the school board. Jose, what’s going on with this particular bill?

Jose Barnhart: Um, so this is interesting. Part of my campaign I passed out North Carolina Constitution and tried to learn more about what we’re ingrained in because coming on and being a member defending our Board of Education, I need to know what we stand for. So in our North Carolina Constitution, it says that the governor appoints the 11 members to NC, essentially. And so I think just I think everybody can say in general, in the last few years, politics has become more divisive. And so it might have not been an issue 20 years ago, 25 years ago, that the governor appointed people because you might have kind of well-rounded people to the appointments, but during the pandemic. The narratives coming out of the people who were saying my kids struggling and then you being called selfish or you being called, you know, not caring about your kids or not caring about other people and seeing and openly saying that this system is not working for my child to be educated.  It created a lot of hardships on individuals, a lot of hardships on families, good, hardworking families who are doing their best to provide for their children. And so I think where this is spawning from is understanding that that is a lot of power for one person to decide the 11 makeup. And there is one elected official on the NCDPI and it happens to be a Republican at this time, Catherine Drouet and 11 other individuals Cooper appointed. And so my question would be, this Reuel is if we’re trying to take politics out of it, if the tables are turned and we have a Republican governor, which I hope will be happening very soon, um. What would we be okay with? Would the other side be okay with that.

Jose Barnhart: 11 of Republicans are going to be changing the way of public education. And so what I think this is trying to do is an attempt to balance, because when you have a lot more eyes on a set of individual, on a set of elected, you know, a set of appointed 11 people, then you’re going to have some diversity, You’re going to have some maybe arguments, if you will, of who that’s going to be versus it being a sole person in charge of it. And so I am excited that this is at least a conversation because it definitely has been a very touchy point, especially with parents like myself that had small I mean, you know, it doesn’t matter what age your kids are. I remember meeting somebody. She was checking me out in one of the stores like my cashier, and she said, Are you Jose Barnhart? I said, Yes, I am. She said, I just want to say thank you so much. I graduated during COVID and I remember hearing you on the radio standing up for the chaos that I was assuming, like my senior year was stolen from me. And I was so frustrated by people making decisions that were hurting me individually. And I was just dumbfounded. I said, Well, you’re welcome. I’m going to try my best to continue to stand up to give kids the opportunities that they deserve. And so I think that’s what this bill is trying to put some perspective into to understand that we do need to have not one person deciding the trajectory of education, but having a group of individuals coming together sometimes maybe with a very healthy debate of conversation of what that looks like.

Reuel Sample: This is House Bill 17, and this is going to be a little bit of a heavy lift and it’s going to be a little bit longer because this will this needs to go through the Senate. And there’s also a change the constitution of the state. So it’s a developing thing. So we’ll keep an eye on it. But for all of these things, we need to make sure that we stay on top of our local legislators and let them know that we support what they’re doing. The two of you, plus the other two that were elected. Were elected in a county that went Democrat for a United States senator. Yet the four of you were elected. Unbelievably and I’m a Republican to the Board of Education, which means that these issues of education, parental responsibilities, curriculum, things that  are getting taught go across party lines. And so whether you’re a Republican or whether you’re a Democrat that’s listening to this, is is that something that we are staying staying on top of. The state of emergency is is that we need to keep continuing to educate our kids in a proper manner. So before I let the two of you go, Pete, what are the things that you’re working on here in New Hanover County? What’s in what’s in your inbox that you are that you are working on to get things done?

Pete Wildeboer: Well, there’s a lot of great things coming down the pike. Number one, we are in budget season, so we’re working very closely with our county commissioners, our partners, again, to help educate our students just as well as we possibly can. And that’s one thing. We have a lot of things in the legislative arena which will be coming out in the next weeks and months to come, which we’re very, very excited about. Senator Lee has been a big part of a lot of the things that’ll be coming out, which will be uplifting our our students through the teachers and giving them some new opportunities to to advance themselves and to become better at their trade. And that’s what that’s what it’s all about, is we need to go back to you know, I don’t know if you heard me a minute ago, but a lot of this is common sense. You know, it’s we need to go back to the basics of education. We need to be the best we possibly can be in each classroom, Put our our our efforts and our mindsets in the classrooms, work closely with our parents so that we can educate our students, you know, together. Like I say right now, boy, I’ll tell you, um, I have a big smile on my face because, you know, we are in graduation season.

Pete Wildeboer: Last night, Jose and I were together at the retirements and we saw some great, great, hardworking educators going into retirement. So, you know, we do have a big need to to continue to get the best of the best here in New Hanover County. Our county commissioners have been our partners in doing that. But we need to continue to find better new and better ways to educate our students so that they can, you know, go out in the workforce, go out to go on to colleges. You know, it’s just a very exciting time of the year. And we just need to continue doing what we’re doing and improving as a board coming together. I met with a person today that has some training opportunities for us. So we need to, you know, become even better as a board. We need to become better at what we do. But, you know, the bottom line, the you know, the where the rubber meets the road is in the classroom with the teachers, with the students, with the parents. So I think I think we’re we’re going the right way. The buss is, I’ll use that terminology, the buss is heading in the right direction. But that doesn’t mean we don’t need to continue to improve each and every day.

Reuel Sample: Jose You always have something cooking. What’s, what’s what’s on the front burner of, of your plans right now.

Jose Barnhart: I mean I’m, I’m really excited about budget season. I’m not going to lie to you because what’s great about the school budget is that we have state and local and we have this endowment. And so we are put I say we I’m pushing our central office to push full steam ahead on tell them what you need now, because if we get it, you’re going to implement it. And when we implement it, we’re going to get the results we want to see of academic growth and supporting our staff, all of them, not just teachers. I mean, we have great teaching assistants, we have bus drivers, all of the people that function to make the system entangled. The other the other cool side of it is the operational side and the capital side. So you hear security and that is something right now that we’re having lots of passionate conversations with our central office, with our sheriff’s department, with our local entities, about tangible ways that we can change and improve those security things that we can do for the beginning of next year. We’ve taken those initiatives of having dogs and we’ve discussed some wanding, and just the protocols that are in place are good protocols, but continuing to maintain those.

Jose Barnhart: So for me, it’s going to be continuing to create opportunities. I am passionate about access to curriculum and not putting it on the burden of our teachers, but putting on the expectation of the district. If we are saying this is the expectation, then clearly define it, clearly say it. And so I have also encouraged our board to have some work sessions just to kind to air out the concerns because we need to say these are valid concerns and we need to say where are we going to go from here? Because here’s the idea is when you have people of different viewpoints, whatever it looks like, and we were all put together by the by New Hampshire County. So we need to come together. On behalf of our students. On behalf of our teachers. And when we do that, we are going to be unstoppable for our students and for our teachers. Because when you have a passion and a drive in the same direction, we’re more opportunities are going to keep coming across the desk. And I’m going to be very proud whenever whenever the budget gets passed and there’s going to be more New Hanover County funds coming here to support our staff and students.

Reuel Sample: We’re going to put a link to these bills, whether it’s the Senate bills or the House bills. We’re also going to put a link to the New Hanover County School Board Board of Education. It’s that’s the back water in me, folks. I always call it the school board. It’s the board of Education. We’re also going to put a link up there because it’s very important that you help us continue to help our elected officials. If you would go to newhanovergop.org/educationfreedom and give today so that we can help keep elected officials who share conservative values of parents in place. So go ahead and check that link out today. It’ll be in the show notes. Pete Wildeboer, Jose Barnhart, It is always my honor to talk to both of you. All the best as you continue to serve the folks of New Hanover County. Thanks for being here.

Pete Wildeboer: Thank you so much, Reuel.  Appreciate it. Have a good night.

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