The Sandhills Community College Board of Trustees has been exposed. David Hensley, vice chairman of the Moore County Board of Education, recently completed a thorough review of past minutes of the Trustees’ meetings.
His deep dive has exposed a board that votes in lockstep with its Chairman and Vice Chairman. Unanimous votes are the norm. The Board has 12 members. According to a review of recent minutes, the Board rarely is faced with a dissenting vote under Chair George Little and Vice Chair Larry Caddell.
Why is this standard operating procedure? The answer is obvious. This board deems itself to be unaccountable. During the 35 years of John Dempsey’s presidency of SCC, the board was expected to rubber stamp every matter that came before it.
The rubber stamp covered unanimous votes across the board, including approval of no-bid contracts connected to campus infrastructure projects, faculty hiring, and adoption of policy.
Additionally, the board has frequently convened without prior notification of the date, time and place of its meetings, which are open to public scrutiny. In some cases, these meetings have convened at Forest Creek Golf Club, a private club within a gated community on Airport Road, near the SCC campus.
Four members of the Board of Trustees were appointed by radical Left North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, including activist Helen Probst Mills, a Cooper acolyte. Four members are appointed by the Moore County Board of Education. The remaining four are appointed by the Moore County Board of Commissioners.
We are, at this moment, at a crossroads. On May 8, the Moore County Board of Education will elect, in a public meeting, its choice to be seated on the Sandhills Community College Board of Trustees. The elected applicant will replace a member who is stepping down due to an expired term.
The Board of Education’s three newest members were elected in November 2022 to fulfill their promise to pursue public education reform in Moore’s public schools. After being seated to a board that now votes 6-1 in support of American values, Constitutional conservatism and fiscal constraint, dramatic change has come within our schools.
For this change to continue, the Board of Education must back Steve Woodward, who is an applicant for appointment to the Sandhills Community College Board of Trustees. Steve Woodward will insist on board transparency, demand fiscal responsibility, and stand in the breach to defy “woke” academia that seeks to drown the campus in “diversity, equity and inclusion.” Steve Woodward never backs down, never compromises, and never sells out.
The Trustees won’t like this threat to their long-entrenched status quo. All the more reason to support Steve.
The school board will elect its appointee during its regularly scheduled meeting on May 8, with the open session starting at 5:30 p.m. at Farm Life Elementary School, Whispering Pines.
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