The Guilford County Board of Commissioners and the Guilford County Board of Education are getting along very well after the county commissioners gave the schools some generous funding for the next 12 months.
However, in recent months, one issue that’s divided the two boards has been the question of $10 million that the Guilford County Board of Commissioners approved in 2018 to beef up school security.
Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad made the motion three years ago as something of an emergency response after the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Several commissioners, past and present, were publicly critical this year of the schools’ failure to put that money to use quickly, while some school officials said that the former county manager – and other factors on the county’s side – slowed down the process.
After a high-profile incident in May in which a 14-year-old student at Southern Guilford High School was assaulted by a parent and students from another school, a lot of questions were raised regarding school security; and that, in turn, brought up questions about that $10 million and how long it has taken to spend it.
District 3 School Board Member Pat Tillman said it’s not helpful for school board members and commissioners to take shots at one another.
He said he thought that the school board could likely have done a better job with the $10 million – much of which now has been used. Some has been spent on school security, and some, with the commissioners’ consent, went toward dealing with COVID-19’s impact on the schools.
“I certainly don’t discount that we were a little slow,” Tillman said of the school board when it came to spending the $10 million.
However, he added that the Board of Education members and others wanted to be careful not to spend the money hastily or unwisely. He pointed to a cautionary tale from the Charlotte area where the school board in Mecklenburg County spent a lot of money quickly to enhance security in the school system there and ended up with all sorts of problems and a financial loss.
He also noted that at one point the county commissioners voted to establish a working group to look into the best use of the $10 million.
“You can’t have it both ways,” he said. “Say spend it quickly and say we need a working group.”
Tillman also pointed out that, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic slowed things down in a big way in 2020 and 2021 and added to the time taken to spend the money.
“We were trying to reopen schools and turn 300 years of education on its head,” Tillman said of the exceptionally difficult past year and three months.
One of the complaints that the county commissioners have had is that the money could have been used for security cameras. A lot of the cameras currently in county schools aren’t working properly.
According to Tillman, security cameras wouldn’t have helped prevent what happened at Southern Guilford. He said cameras are better for piecing things together after an event than they are preventing them.
Tillman noted that security cameras would not likely have stopped the attack at Southern Guilford, which involved a parent coming in with a group and someone inside the school holding a door open for them.
Tillman, who was elected to the school board in 2016, said that he recently requested a timeline regarding the money. Interestingly, Guilford County Commissioner Justin Conrad made the same request of county staff.
Both men got the timeline but Tillman said that, due to the age and the level of complexity of the issue, he’s not sure any one person knows a whole story behind the money, but he added that he felt as though the commissioners and school board members could work together to see that the remainder of the $10 million is used effectively.
What is complex about armed school guards at entrances and exits? Metal detectors. Our legislators and govt employees have some of the protections.
You know what’s really crazy is I read this morning that the superintendent and some staff are getting EXTRA security because they are getting nasty emails. Poor little things….
Congratulations! Most of the older schools need BDA/DAS systems installed in order to meet any sort of current compliance standards for emergency communications. The reason I congratulate you so emphatically is the fact that these systems have more than doubled in cost over the past year. Good luck spending that $10MM. It should be much easier now!
If the issue is to complex, and they can not trace 10.million dollars.. then clearly we have the wrong people in charge of that level of money. I’m expected to manage every dollar of my expenses.. these people should be held to a higher standard.. seeing as how this is not their money, but OUR money. Sharon Contreras needs to be replaced. Her appropriated staff needs to be replaced. The school board needs to be disbanded and replaced. The county Commissioners will need to he replaced if they’re not going to demand the answers. GCS can hide behind racism and CRT if they want.. but this was a CHILD who was harmed due to a failure at every level to protect our kids. Who’s kid will be next?
She would have already been replaced if she were white. Do NOT under estimate a parent’s strength and power and love when it comes to their child’s safety and protection. The seriousness of this situation is much greater than what it seems. Why isn’t the “EXTRA” protection being given to the school children instead of the problem?
Give parents school vouchers;they will solve the problem themselves.
Why can’t the taxpayers whose money this was be given an accounting of how it was spent. Any cpa could put together a spreadsheet to give a detailed accounting of where it is or not is