New Haven parents speak out against merger; board evaluates Bradley

By JIM AND ELIJAH BROOKS
Nelson County Gazette / WBRT Radio

Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022 — The agenda for the Nelson County Board of Education’s special meeting at New Haven School was modified late in the day Wednesday due to restraining order requested by Don Thrasher and approved by Nelson Circuit Judge Charles “Chuck” Simms.

Thrasher had requested an injuction to prevent the board from voting on construction contracts related to the projects needed to eventually move thte district’s middle school students to one of the two high school campuses.

Without time for a hearing on Wednesday, Simms granted the request for the restraining order and set the date for a court hearing for Monday afternoon in Nelson Circuit Court.

During guest comments, Thrasher chastised the board for trying to get the contracts approved prior to the arrival of the two new board members next month.

“Citizens shouldn’ thave to go to the courts to stop what you guys were about to do,” he said. He said the board of education should follow what voters want, not what they’re toldl to do.

Melanine Rogers of New Haven told the board she was excited to hear details of upgrades and renovations for their school. She said she believedd the community campus model will bring more opportunity to all of the district’s middle schoolers.

“Overall, the pros will outweight the cons,” she said.

Debra Bohachevsky of Bloomfield, representing NC CARES, called on the board not to blindly follow the information presented to them, but to dig deeper.

Daniel Greenwell told the board that the parents in the District 1 largely opposed moving middle school kids to the high schools, which they expressed when they voted to send Norman to represent them on the school board.

Joseph Mattingly of New Haven todl the board he appreciated the money the board wanted to spend on the school, but called it a ‘facelift”.

“It doesn’t reflect on what needs to be done,” he said. “We’ve been suffering with this for years because you didn’t want to spend the money on school teachers.”

The loss of the middle school grades will hurt New Haven as a community without K thru 8 education, Mattingly explained.

Mattingly laid blame on the board for its failure to bring quality education to New Haven. “We don’t control that, but you do,” he said.

He suggested that the board keep the middle school grades and New Haven and then devote the resources to bettering education at the school.

SUPERINTENDENT’S EVALUTION. At the end of its meeting Wednesday evening, the board entered into executive session for the superintendent’s summative evaluation.

The summative evaluation gives the board seven leadership standards with which to measure their superintendent’s performance: instructional, cultural, human resources, managerial, collaborative, influential and strategic.

In addition to the board’s evaluation, the superintendent is expected to collect evidence during the year to demonstrate his or her ability to meet the standards.

The evaluation uses a four-tier rating system:
“Exemplary” – performance exceeding the standard.
“Accomplished” – performance that meets the standard.
“Developing” – performance that shows growth toward meeting the standard.
“Growth required” – for areas that must be addressed in a professional growth plan.

Superintendent Wes Bradley’s summative evaluation rate him “exemplary” in five of the seven standards — strategic leadership, cultural leadership, human resource leadership, collaborative leadership and influential leadership.

The board ranked Bradley as “developing” in the instructional leadership standard, and “accomplished” in the managerial leadership standard.

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