A lot of school boards are meeting tonight on masks.
So far, these districts have switched to optional:
Duplin, Rutherford, Sampson, Caswell, Vance, Nash
Count of optional now stands at 70, but I'm still going through the list of meetings. #ncpol#nced
Elizabeth City-Pasquotank voted just now to go mask optional on Mar. 1
Granville will go mask optional Feb 28
Guilford (6-1) and Thomasville City Schools (4-1) vote to go mask optional.
Total update: 74 #nced#ncpol
Polk and Orange Cty meetings arestill ongoing.
Recommendation at Orange board meeting was to go optional "withing 72 hours" of Orange Cty government lifting indoor masks. No vote yet though.
Wilson goes optional Feb. 22
Total update: 75 #nced#ncpol
Polk County school board just voted to go mask optional
and to resume all regular school activities, incl. access to schools by volunteers.
Buncombe's Supt. recommendations are to go mask optional Feb. 28, masks req'd on buses, and anyone returning from isolation/exclusion to wear it for 6-10 days.
No vote yet. Will come back to this.
CMS Supt. Winston recommends mask optional for all students, staff and visitors effective March 7.
Discussion is ongoing right now here: facebook.com/cmsboe/videos/… #nced#ncpol
Buncombe school board votes in favor of going mask optional starting Feb. 28. #nced#ncpol
K-12 Masks updates to follow as school board meetings kicking off this afternoon & this evening:
Alamance-Burlington
Alexander
Chapel Hill-Carrboro City
Charlotte-Mecklenburg
Clinton City
Lenoir
Madison
Wake
Watauga
Winston-Salem/Forsyth #nced
Alamance Burlington school board votes 6-1 to go mask optional effective immediately. #nced#ncpol
Wake County board now meeting; board attorney is dragging this out with a long list of where face coverings are still required "for clarity for the public."
First up: Lee Lilley, NC Pandemic Recovery Office
The name may be familiar.
4 days after the ACP permit was approved, Cooper hired Lilley to be his new legislative director. Lilley was a lobbyist for Dominion, Duke’s partner in the pipeline. nsjonline.com/article/2019/1…#ncga#ncpol
Cohen was asked to take an oath or affirmation of her testimony today. She takes an affirmation. #ncga
Trice departed after I reported on his talking points to the #WCPSS board on CRT.
Under Trice & Macarenaz, the Equity Affairs office has been responsible for CRT training of teachers going back 5 years.
The office has cost taxpayers millions.
Mascarenaz was a hire from the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Teaching Tolerence," which has since been renamed to "Learning for Justice.'
She was “Director of Equity Affairs for Coaching and Leadership.” Salary at date of hire: $85,000. She made $86,708 as of 2019.
The Office of Equity Affairs (OEA) has cost taxpayers millions, such as annual salaries (around 700k for 10 people).
Below is the running total for the OEA as determined by records requests. It's almost $6M since its inception not including 2020-21. #wcpss
NSJ dialed in to today's COVID briefing and was just shut out of questions like we were in the past.
FTR, I logged into the call at the earliest time and was the first one logged in. #ncpol
Wake County's Office of Equity Affairs has drafted a new "Equity" policy for the district. It will be on the Policy Cmte agenda this Wednesday.
Yes, there are #CriticalRaceTheory elements in it.
(thread) #wcpss
Wake's OEA is going out of state with one example - Arlington, VA. This one repeats the idea of "inclusion" yet follows the fluid nature of CRT:
"The work of equity is a principle that is constantly evolving, therefore, it is only prudent that the
definition will also evolve."