North Carolina Parents Score Victory Against Woke School Bureaucrats

The Left wants to turn schools into migrant centers to house Joe Biden’s illegal immigrants. North Carolina parents are pushing back—and winning

When parents caught wind of a scheme to shut down a special education high school in a coastal North Carolina community and convert it into a school for illegal immigrants, they sprang into action. After vocal opposition from the conservative parents and community at large, the school board shut down the plan for good. This demonstrated the importance of electing good, solid conservatives in school board elections, and sent a warning to other communities to be on the lookout for similar plans.

The plan originated with New Hanover County Superintendent Dr. Charles Foust, who announced he would shut down the Career Readiness Academy at Mosley to transform it into a “newcomers school.” A member of the New Hanover County Commission, Dane Scalise, wrote in an op-ed on Jan. 25 that the decision by Foust and his staff “blindsided” the school board. He bemoaned the pressure placed on parents, forcing students and families to transfer to other schools. Scalise said Foust only admitted the plan to convert it to a “newcomers school” after the announcement.

Scalise described a “newcomers school” as “more akin to migrant resettlement and assimilation facilities.” Their mission isn’t to educate students at grade level, but rather to help entire immigrant families “integrate into the local community where they are located.” Scalise warned that these facilities are outside the mission of the county school district and would become magnets to illegal immigrant families from outside the county.

The decision to close Mosley especially concerned Scalise and other board members, he said, as plans may have begun as early as 2021.

The chairman of the New Hanover County Republican Party, Nevin Carr III, blasted the proposed newcomers school. He told Restoration News:

Democrats at every level of government are redistributing opportunities away from American citizens and giving them to illegal migrants.  While the effects of these efforts have not been as visible in our community, they are now starting to come to light with this latest issue of local Democrat school administrators trying to close a special needs program at Mosley school to make space for migrant children.  If it wasn’t for our Republican majority School Board and other local Republican leaders like County Commissioner Dane Scalise, the Democrats would have likely gotten away with it.  This is just the beginning, and we can expect these attempts to treat Americans as second-class citizens to continue unless we are able to achieve victory at the ballot box.  Liberty requires maintenance.

“Stupefied”

To underscore how shocking and secretive this move was, local reports described the school board as “stupefied” by a progress report made by Chief Academic Officer Patrice Faison on Nov. 28. A slide from the presentation showed the plan began in September 2023, continuing with regular updates through the academic calendar. They got as far as planning professional development for faculty and staff, and the beginnings of a curriculum, before they brought the board of education up to speed.

According to the Cape Fear Beacon, the plans went even further than that, and included housing plans:

During her presentation, Dr. Faison stated Mosley would ‘house’ refugee students. Does this imply more than just utilizing classroom spaces for educational purposes? Providing accommodation and boarding for refugees at schools is a real practice. For instance, the American Hebrew Academy in Greensboro is offering on-campus living for refugees in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). And earlier this month, Madison High School in Brooklyn, New York, was used to provide temporary shelter for refugees.

Only after this shock presentation did the Mosley principal send a letter stating the school would close, and how to register for a different school. The letter, dated December 1, gave students a February 2, 2024 deadline to apply for a specialty high school or program to accommodate the special needs of the students taught at Mosley.

The controversy quickly came to a head in January, going viral when national conservative outlets began picking up the story.

As one might imagine, money is at least partly behind this decision. Foust told local news the school “wasn’t yielding a significant return on investment,” and that closing the school would “close a $10 million budget deficit for the school system.” Foust did not say whether he might be getting grants or subsidies to open a “newcomers school.”

Parents Strike Back

Luckily, basic sense has prevailed, after the conservative majority on the board of education and outraged community members let their voices be heard. On Jan. 25, Foust announced he had reversed the decision to close Mosley, and that he would not pursue an immigrant school in its place.

As one parent said, “What I would urge board members to do going forward is look into the school and what it has to offer. I think students spoke the loudest about what the school meant to them. I wasn’t as involved with everything prior to but now my eyes are open and I may continue to advocate in any way that I can.”

North Carolina is a mostly conservative state, with a few liberal enclaves in the urban areas and college towns. That’s how a Democrat, Roy Cooper, could get elected governor. He’s spent much of his administration attempting to block common sense legislation advanced to his desk by a Republican supermajority in the legislature. Cooper has turned a blind eye to the invasion at the southern border of the United States, instead choosing to blame Donald Trump—the former president—for the current border crisis:

A bipartisan Senate is close to the strongest border security law in a generation but Donald Trump is telling Republicans to stop because a tough border law hurts his campaign. If Republican Governors really wanted strong border security now they would release a joint statement supporting this legislation instead of one that bows to Trump and urges violating the constitution and the rule of law.

This episode demonstrates the power of local elections, including what can happen at the school board level. A school board is, at a fundamental level, a reflection of the local community that elects its members. When administrators work behind closed doors to defy the wishes of parents and board members, the community can come together to give them a much-needed course correction.

(READ MORE: Rogue North Carolina School Boards Choose Trans Activists Over Parents)