At last night’s New Hanover County Board of Education meeting, members voted 6-1 to pass a resolution urging the state’s General Assembly to pass a state budget. Nine months into the fiscal year, North Carolina remains the only state in the nation without a new budget. The legislature is due to return to session on April 22.
The evening also featured a contentious argument between Libertarian David Perry and Republican Pat Bradford over text messages in which Perry asked Bradford for her vote to support his version of the employee retention committee in exchange for his support of LifeWise Academy, a Christian education group seeking to take students off campus for instruction once a week.
Additionally, supporters and opponents of the LifeWise program, which offers off-campus Bible-based classes during school hours, came out in droves during the public comment period.
Board infighting continues
Libertarian board member David Perry voted against the state budget resolution without stating a reason on Wednesday evening. Perry later told WHQR that he wanted a combination of the language from the North Carolina School Boards Association and wording from NHCS.
Earlier in the meeting, Democrat Tim Merrick made an unsuccessful motion to send the resolution crafted by the North Carolina School Boards Association. Republican members Josie Barnhart and Pat Bradford said that the resolution contained “political messaging.” Merrick criticized their resolution, which ultimately passed, as “watered down,” adding that most of what school boards do is inherently political.
But fireworks erupted even before then when Bradford said that a board member, who turned out to be Perry, sent her text messages asking for a vote to make his proposed Employee Benefits & Retention Committee a standing committee instead of an advisory one in exchange for his vote in favor of the LifeWise Academy. That vote, which is expected to be contentious, has not yet been scheduled, but is slated for after budget season.
Bradford said she gave the district proof of the text messages because she asked Republican Board Chair Pete Wildeboer to investigate what she called a 'quid pro quo' and Perry's alleged violations of the board ethics policy. The district turned over the text messages within minutes after WHQR requested them.
In the messages, which appear to have been sent prior to the meeting, Perry wrote, “I am just wondering if there was anything I could offer you to vote my way on the Employee Benefits & Retention Committee. That was my brain child and I really believe I am in the best position to make it really productive. It’s important to me,” he wrote. “I don’t think it’s the best idea, but I am willing to offer you my vote on LifeWise for your vote to keep the committee as Standing and let me run with it.”
Bradford responded, “David, I am absolutely shocked that you sent this offer to me. Let my answer be crystal clear never ever is my vote for sale. My job is to make the right decisions for the schools district; the kids, the staff regardless of me.”
Perry told Bradford that he wasn’t in “favor of horse trading either” but wanted to seek a “compromise.” He then told Bradford that he needed to lead it so the committee could be productive without burdening Central Office staff, who are already busy. He then launched into telling Bradford that she had “derailed” his “goals for over a year.”
Perry told WHQR that, with respect to trading the votes, “I was willing to make a deal, and that's what people do all the time, right? [...] I mean, don't they do that kind of thing in Congress and the General Assembly all the time? But they probably tell people about, or don’t text it, I guess, but I mean don't think there's anything illegal or unethical about it. I made a calculated decision like, ‘Okay, I think the benefits of doing right by our employees outweigh the not so great logistical nightmare that could be LifeWise.’”
Perry added that he was blindsided last month when the policy committee voted to change his standing committee to an advisory one without consulting him.
WHQR reached out to the chair of the policy committee, Republican Melissa Mason, about why this was changed, and she wrote in an email that committee members thought it would be better as an advisory one to “reflect the expertise of our staff and the strong work already underway to recruit and retain employees.”
Mason confirmed that Perry was not consulted in advance of the changes, as “potential [ones] were discussed during the Policy Committee meeting.”
On Wednesday evening, Perry tried to reverse that decision, arguing that the standing committee would give the board and committee members more voting power and would meet more often. He also said he was upset he had only a minute to explain why this was the better path forward.
“I would have been the chair for [the] standing [committee] [...]. We have these advisory committees like curriculum, where it's run by the Central Office, and there are board members on it, but they don't get the vote,” he said.
When it came time for the vote, Perry was the only one against passing the board committee policy, which labeled the Employee Benefits & Retention Committee as advisory.
After the meeting, Perry escalated the dispute.
In a post on the NHC Educational Justice page late last evening, he wrote in part, “Pat is a vindictive Bitch and has done everything in her power to try and bring me down since I was elected, even when I was still a Republican. And now the gloves are off since I switched to the Libertarian Party,” he said. “It really is quite hypocritical for her to accuse me of being unethical when she blatantly ignores policies and uses pictures of school children to promote her own campaign.”
Bradford had posted some photos, but has since taken them down, replacing them with images in which the children's faces are not visible. WHQR also reached out to her about the attack on her character, and she said to read the board's ethics policy 2120 (which covers board member conduct).
WHQR also asked Perry directly about his explicit comment about Bradford, and he responded, “She is.”
Perry later made a post later on Thursday that called Mason, Wildeboer, Bradford, and Barnhart the “modern day Pharisees” writing that these “4 individuals are some of the most unprincipled, deceitful, hypocritical, and vindicative people I ever had the displeasure of working with [...]. He went on to write that he was “glad” that Mason and Wildeboer were leaving in December and that Bradford and Barnhart should get voted off the board in November.
Bradford later wrote to WHQR that she refutes Perry’s accusation that this is political payback for his switching parties and added, “I am a follower of Jesus; I’m [sic] can’t profess Jesus and turn around and be vengeful or vindictive. You gotta walk a walk, not just talk the talk. That’s where forgiveness kicks in.”
Bradford said she’s looking forward to the advisory committee on Employee Benefits & Retention — and has faith in Assistant Superintendent Jennifer Geller to lead it.
She also maintains that her vote on the LifeWise program is not set in stone — that she wants to hear what Barnes has to say on the logistics of it all. She believes that Perry violated policy by declaring already that he is not in support of the program.
Legislative priorities back to the drawing board
Members were also slated to vote on their legislative agenda, but sent it back to the committee to add more specifics on allotment formulas, which determine how the legislature funds school positions. For example, the state currently funds one assistant principal per 985 students. Republicans Bradford and Mason dissented.
Bradford said she dissented because she wanted the priorities to fit on a single sheet, even though they could send a “phone book” of requests to the legislators.
The other members agreed that the legislative agenda needed to move beyond general asks and include more specific numbers for positions that they need.
Budget talks moving forward
Superintendent Dr. Christopher Barnes said he hoped to present a finalized budget at the board's April 28 agenda review meeting, and the board would then vote on the recommendation at the May 5 meeting. In the meantime, Barnes has to work out some factors, such as finding internal ways to close a $2.5 million funding gap.
Some of the solutions are working to reduce contract increases, eliminate three assistant principal positions and an occupational and physical therapist position, and add a student technology fee for students not on, for example, free and reduced lunch.
Barnes said he wanted the narrative to be that the county commissioners are doing all they can to support the district’s budget, noting that they fund additional personnel beyond their operating budget of $103.4 million. Those are the school nurses ($3.6 million), mental health counselors ($3.7 million), school resource officers ($5.5 million), the Elements program ($1.5 million), and the Too Good for Violence program ($430,061), for a total of $118 million.
New Hanover County staff have proposed giving the school district $836,000 in additional funds, but the decision is ultimately up to the county commissioners, and talks are ongoing.
Democratic member Judy Justice agreed that the county is doing what they can but laid the blame on the state legislature for failing to pass a budget and for ranking 51st in the nation (including Washington, D.C.) in education funding as a share of the state’s economy, according to the most recent Education Law Report.
Barnes shared that most public school systems across the state are being hurt by declining enrollment, with the district specifically going from 25,085 students in 2023 to 23,760 in 2026. Barnes mainly attributed this to falling birth rates, but he previously stated that the district’s student needs are increasing and that they’ve had to cut more than 300 staff over the past two years.
Discussion over implementing LifeWise Academy dominates the public call period
While no decision has been made and no memorandum of understanding (MOU) has been prepared for the LifeWise program, those in favor of and against the program dominated the public comment period.
Port City Daily has written several articles about the program, describing what it would entail and the public opposition to it.
And last evening, of the 26 people who spoke at the comment period, about 54% spoke out against LifeWise coming to the school district, and 38% were in support.
Dissenters included the NHC Educational Justice group, a liberal-leaning local education group that has garnered over 1,000 signatures opposing the school board's approval of a future LifeWise MOU. Other speakers against the program included Democratic school board candidates Jerry Jones Jr. and Wendy Dale, and NHC Democratic Party Chair Jill Hopman.
Arguments from dissenters included that it would open the door to other religious and secular groups to take students out of the school, and that even though it would be a 45-minute class once a week (some doubted this time constraint was plausible, given the logistics). They also argued that students would still miss important electives like PE, art, and music, and that teachers and staff would still have to manage students leaving class and getting to transportation. They asked how LifeWise would conduct background checks of staff, and that religious and secular education should live in separate spheres.
Those speaking in favor were the organizers of bringing LifeWise to the district, such as Allisa Sivils and Wayne and Carolyn Polston, and from the Global River Church, discipleship pastor Loretta Efstathiou, and former Republican NHC Board of Elections member Bruce Kemp.
Supporters argued that a 1952 Supreme Court case, Zorach v. Clauson, allows for this type of program, that they are not taking away valuable time from core instruction, that they are entirely funding this effort, that parents’ trust would be restored in the school system if this were to be implemented, and students are suffering from mental health issues that the churches could help support. Some supporters, like Teresa Magean and Karen Clark, used the word “enemy” to describe those who don’t support the LifeWise MOU.
