Proposed changes to NC school calendars and guns on campus (05-02-2025--Hour3)

What's going on. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeakclendarshow dot com, make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free right to your smartphone or tablet. And again, thank you so much for your support. Real quick for people who care about this sort of thing, which is like hundreds of thousands of people. The North Carolina Senate approved to bill to provide local school districts a tte T little bit of flexibility on their school calendars, their school year calendar. This issue has been an issue. It's as long as I've been covering schools in Charlotte, which goes back to the year two thousand. Okay, there's this constant fight over the school year calendar. And I would just point out here again that the problem is the model, the K twelve gov CO model, And so because you're trying to create a standard for you know, millions of people, and you cannot possibly create one that's going to satisfy everybody, because everybody's lives are different. You know, like Christy and I are looking to plan a vacation, and you know, I have different scheduling pressures with this job than she has with hers, and so you got to block off different times. And if you want to go on a vacation, you got to make sure that you got the time off. And when we go and we travel up to New York and we go see family up in New York, both of my sisters up there are teachers, and so their schedule is different than the schedule for my brother and his wife. Their kids are in school in Atlanta, and so when we're all trying to organize this stuff, their time off is different. They go back to school later than we do. So the problem is the model. It's too expansive to take into account all of these different factors and pressures. And then you have the tourism industry, right, they want to make sure that they have the season that they need, the length that they need, and whatever. So there are all these different pressures being applied to the lawmakers to change the schedule. Always has been, and so Senator Burger, after they pass this bill, Burger said, it's time for us to put this school calendar debate to rest. Oh, yes, please. But here's what the school calendar Flexibility Senate Bill seven fifty four. Here's what the act does. It allows school districts two options. You get two choices here, all right, for when to start your school year. It retains the current school calendar law, which is that you are to start school no earlier than the Monday closest to August twenty sixth. The Monday closest to August twenty sixth, Okay, that's the earliest you can start, and you can't end it any later than the Friday closest to June eleventh. And the reason for that is it protects this summer vacation period. Okay, So that's the existing calendar, So you can keep that, or there's a new option to begin no earlier than the Monday closest to August nineteenth and ending no later than the Friday before the last Monday in May. So basically, what is it. It's a week. Okay, it's a week. You could keep the current calendar now, or you can start a week early, a week earlier in August. Smell and savor the flexibility. The bill would implement new compliance measures as well and penalties for school districts that defy the calendar law because apparently some school districts have been doing that, they've been doing their own calendars, and there's been a lot of tut tutting over that. The Superintendent of public Instruction is now required or would be under the bill, to report and investigate any violations. The State Board of Education is then required to direct the local school board to fix it if they are found to be not compliant, and then if the local board doesn't address the violation, then its central office funding will be withheld until becomes compliant. Also, any person who lives or owns a business within the local school district boundary would be able to sue the local school board if it defies the school calendar law. Opens the door for litigation that might prompt some compliance. Again, just pointing out the problem is the model. What else? There's another bill? Class size. This is a piece from wrl TV. Kindergarten through third grade class size limits would go away, so K through three class size caps lifted. This is how SPIL eighth six. It would also allow up to half of school teachers to be unlicensed. So first up, the class sizes. They have been in place in some form since the founding of the country. No, I'm kidding, it's only been since twenty eighteen. OK. So just keep that in mind when you hear people like, oh my god, I believe we're going backwards and all this. It's twenty eighteen. They put the cap on in twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, and they stipulate that the schools have to have an average of only sixteen to eighteen students in K through three. House Bill eight oh six makes those class size limits mere suggestions, no longer requirements. Some school leaders have objected to these limits for the lower grades because they say it makes it harder to hire teachers in other subjects and other grade levels because of limited funds and classroom space. And if you think about it, it does it does probably require bigger schools, right, if you're going to set a cap of sixteen students, then you got to build more classrooms if you end up with one hundred students versus if you made just bigger class sizes. Right, I mean, I remember my class sizes were always always mid twenties. Also, they effectively increase fourth and fifth grade class sizes. Wake County School Board members have long lamented that they also require more schools to be built or trailers to be brought in for classroom expansion. Class size limits were originally intended to improve student achievement and school preparedness at those young grade levels, but the research has been mixed as to whether or not it actually helps. Okay, so there's that then. House Pilato six also allows schools to hire unlicensed teachers. Charter schools can do this right now, but the traditional K twelve schools cannot. Now. It would still require that at least half of the teachers on staff have a license at each school. College degrees would be required for teachers in core subjects math science, social studies, and language arts which used to be called English. Unlicensed teachers would need pre service training so they would be able to know how to identify and educate kids that have disabilities, how to manage positive student behaviors, effective communication for de escalating behavior, as well as safe in appropriate use of seclusion as punishment and restraint in case the kids getting out of control. So they would get training, they just don't have the license. Here's the thing too. If you're not a good communicator, I highly doubt you're going to be a good teacher. The best teachers I have ever had were good communicators. They made the material compelling and interesting and enter. You can have all the licensing you want, but if you cannot convey the material to the kids, I don't think you're going to be a good teacher. I'm not saying all teachers. I'm just saying I think it's okay if you open it up for people who don't have the license, right, and then they can go in. They can see how they do. You can see how they do, and maybe they're really good at it, and maybe they're not. If they're not really good at it, fine, you can get rid of them. Right. If they are really good at it, awesome, you got a good teacher now. And don't you. Guys keep saying that we have this teacher shortage, so we have to get more teachers, so this would help do that. No. Another piece of legislation, House Bill five seventy three and its companion bill in the Senate twol four, would remove the requirement that prospective teachers take and pass three different exams before becoming licensed teachers. These are just a couple of the bills this session that are aimed at removing the licensing re requirement and all of the hoops that you have to jump through in order to become a teacher, which you know, not too long ago, you didn't need all of this stuff. You did not need all of these requirements to become a teacher. And finally, House Bill fifty six that would require local school boards to publish detailed explanations of what each school system's central office position is and how much employees are paid. Some argue that there are too many administrators. School systems argue that there are too few. So now we'll we'll get a look, publish the list and see how much they're being paid, because the explosion of the administrative bloat is a real thing, all right. So spring is here a time of renewal and celebrations. You've got graduations, weddings, anniversaries and the special days for mom and dad. Your family's making memories that are going to as a lifetime. But let me ask you, are all of those treasured moments from days gone by? Are they hidden away on old VCR tapes? Eight millimeter films, photos, slides. Are they preserved because over time, these precious memories can fade and deteriorate, losing the magic of yesterday. At Creative Video, they help you protect what matters most. Their expert team digitizes your cherished family moments and transfers them onto a USB drive, freezing them in time so they can be enjoyed for generations to come. I urge you do not wait until it's too late this spring. Celebrate your past. Visit Creative Video today and let them preserve your legacy with the love and care that it deserves. Creative Video Preserving Family Memories since nineteen ninety seven. Located in mint Hill, just off four eighty five. Mail orders are accepted to get all the details at createavideo dot com. Also up in Raleigh, The North Carolina House past legislation yesterday allowing school personnel and teachers to carry firearms on private school grounds in an effort to bolster school security measures. Okay, so I go over this again, because people hear this stuff and sometimes they just like literally their brains shut down after they hear conceal carry teachers on campus. This is at private schools, so not the K twelve Gov co schools. Okay, those are still completely you know, I should say completely unguarded. They are school resource officers, taxpayer funded school resource officers. But in the private school setting, a lot of times the schools aren't very large, and so they would like to be able to have people who are armed. And if you have a concealed carry permit, you should be allowed to conceal carry when you are at work and you would then become a line of defense. And for people who have not gone through a concealed carry process, the concealed carry process is you got to you submit your application. You if you're in Meckelberg County, you got to wait like seventeen years for the sheriff to approve it. No, I'm kidding, it's not that long, not a little bit short of that. But they run your background check. They run your name and information through like the mental health systems to make sure that you haven't been you know, adjudicated or you know, confined or something like that. What else, Oh, you have to take a class. You have to take the eight hour training class and part of that class is range time. You actually have to pass the range requirement. You have to forget what it is I think it's it's like twenty two out of twenty five you have to hit the target twenty two out of twenty five times, something like that. So there is an amount of training that goes into getting a concealed carry and permit, and so once somebody decides to do that, go through that process. They then carry their firearm and they conceal it so you don't know they have it. And what that does is if there are and the population of people who conceal carry is not large that we know of, No, it's single digit percentages of the population generally, so you're not going to know who is packing and who is not. And generally speaking, the people who conceal carry are they commit far fewer crimes than like every other demographic. They are the most law abiding popular The very fact that they went through the process to get the concealed carry permit rather than just illegally carrying it concealed, tells you these are people that value following the law right. And so the private schools have asked for these changes, so staff have the option. This is not a requirement. You don't have to carry if you don't want to. If you are a concealed handgun permit holder and you don't want to bring it to the workplace, you don't have to either. No one's forcing you to do it. It's allowing you to do it if you choose to. Dare I say it's the pro choice option. This is a particular concern among Christian schools, which have been targeted in recent years. The Firearm Law Revisions Bill allows individuals with valid concealed handgun permits to carry on private school property if the school allows it and provides written permission. So those are your requirements. If the school doesn't want the teachers to carry on campus, then the school can ban it too. But if the school would like that to occur, then you would have to get permission in writing from your school. So this way, if you know they don't want you carrying, but they want somebody else carrying or whatever, the school would be able to do that. Representative Keith Kidwell, Republican from Beaufort, said data shows two million times a year legally owned guns are used to defend people in the United States. The bill passed sixty two to forty four along party lines. Representative Marsha Morey from Durham she's a Democrat and a former judge, which is amazing. I have not she said, I have not heard from one private school teacher saying I'd like to have a gun and the ability to take one on my school. Do we really want more guns in our school? Yes, more guns in the hands of people who are not trained, okay, Number one, Representative Maury, I would submit that you're not hearing from private school teachers asking you that because they know what your politics are on this matter. They know that you don't want You would ban all the guns if you could, so they're not going to come to you and ask you for this. You're also in the minority. You have no ability to affect outcomes here in the legislature. You don't have much juice. So of course people aren't coming to you to lobby for you to help them conceal carry at their Christian school. Okay, So that's a ridiculous argument. Just because no one has come to you personally doesn't mean that people aren't going to lawmakers and asking for it, Number one. Number two, do we really want more guns in schools? Yes, that's how you protect from maniac shooters. Right when a maniac shows up at the door with a gun. Somebody with a gun is going to be the reason why that maniac stops shooting. That's it. That's how those things end. Always somebody else with a gun stops the maniac. So if my option is to have one maniac with a gun and nobody else armed, or have one maniac with a gun going into a school where potentially three, four or five people in that school have guns, yeah, I'm choosing that one. So yes, more guns in the schools, that would be a solution, absolutely, And I already went over the training part of that argument. Now. The Senate also has a bill that would allow parents, teachers, or others to serve as volunteer armed guards for schools. They'd be required to take eight hours of annual training first. Private schools can already hire. This is, by the way, only for the private schools. Again, only for private schools. Private schools can already hire private security, although supporters of the bill say barely any schools have actually done that. Many schools are small, with only a couple dozen students, and so they lack the funding to hire professional security. Other larger schools would simply rather spend money on different purposes. Supporters say, and so they rely on volunteers to provide free security right now. So what they're saying is, we already have these volunteers that are participating in their child's education. They're volunteering to act as security for the private school. We would like for them if they choose to, and if they go through the process of getting a valid concealed handgun permit and they would like to carry concealed while on campus, we would have no problem with that. Again, all of this is voluntary. And here's the thing too, This is the beauty of the private model, which is, if you don't want your kid going to a school that has an armed security officer, then you don't send your kid to that school. You get to choose send them somewhere else where they'll be unprotected. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app and it's a website and it combines news from around the world in one place so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash Pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. That's it, over to the phones and talk with Joe. Hello, Joe, Welcome to the show. Hey Pete, how you doing that? Okay? Right? And sunny day, little cloudy, but it's a great day. I'm enjoying listening to your discussion about the school system and kids and private school and public school. But I think one thing we can do to help our society and help our youth is during their k through twelve when we'm speaking public school during their K through twelve matriculation to graduation and come out into society, that they are required through their physical education to receive martial arts training. Now they can get up to a fifty they can become a fifty breed black belt, and maybe that's something that you require before for them to receive a North Carolina diploma. And by them going through that training, they're taught discipline, they're taught the ability to not engage in bullying behavior, and they have a few more life skills that would keep them from being victims. So all right, The first problem I see with this idea is that it relies on the assumption that kids are still actually required to do fizz ed every year. I don't think they are. I'm in high school and yeah it's a part of the yeahs. As they sign up for their courses, they have to have certain hours, and one of the hours is in physical education. Yeah, but they don't. But it's my understand Like one of one of my nephews, he only goes to school like two days a week. Well, he's probably he's probably taken his house of phizz Yeah, I know, he only has a few court. I know some students they call him flick students. Yeah, don't one or two classes left. But yeah, that's because they've already have the credit hours and the things that they need for graduation. Right, So you would have to actually require physical education for every single year that they're in school, and there's no and and the fizz ed actually has to be fizz ed like when I was in elementary school and it would rain outside in the wintertime. Also, like we would have to stay in the gymnasium and for like one chunk of the time I think, like a like three or four weeks every gym class was square dancing. They taught us how to square dance. Well, what a great opportunity to have a martial arts yes, to learn how to protect yourself, yes, and to learn how to engage with people. I think that's a great idea to at the very minimum, to offer something like that in the schools. My concern with mandating it for every kid is, right now, there's like a self selection process because it's not required, So kids who want to learn this they go and they're motivated to stick with it and all of that. I don't know if I want the kids who don't want to learn it, or the kids who are like who turn into bad adults. Like, I don't know if I want highly trained killers coming out of the schools that are then going to be preying on me when I'm an old person. Well, whether they have a physical skill or something in their hand, they're still a dangerous person. Right, But it would be really it would be really interesting. We wouldn't have we would have less bullying because nobody would know. Right. So with that guy, right, Well, you have to if you're going to a school, well, you know, you you've got to assume that everybody would know the stuff that they're trying to teach you too. Although I do see one potential problem. Maybe the older kids would know more, they would be better trained and skilled, and so they may be able to employ those skills for nefarious purposes with greater efficiency and effectiveness on the younger kids. But like I know, the martial arts training like it does, it does create in a lot of people like that kind of mental discipline and sort of a code where they don't engage in that kind of behavior exactly exactly. And I think all of what we're talking about, and we talk about violence and schools and things of that nature. It's an American mindset that's needed, that needs that needs to change. Our mindset as Americans is so vastly different than any of the culture on earth. Yeah, I'm not sure about that, and we need to I don't know about that. There are some places on this planet that I mean that that do a whole bunch of really terrible things to each other on a regular basis. You could probably count them on one hand. No, No, I can think of many societies, like, for example, we don't here here's a good example. When is the last time you heard of people having arms chopped off in the streets with machetes, right, or tires lit on fire and draped over their heads and burned alive, you know, stuff like that, were stoned to death in the public square, or flung off of the tops of buildings, stuff like that. So I'd like, I don't think we are unique in in in the these these violent. Actions, well what were not unique, but but within our own front door, I think we can work to do. Oh well, no doubt about that. Yeah, I agree with that, no doubt. And yeah, there has to be there has to be a focus on Uh, the value of life. I think that's where it starts, is that is that all life is precious, and you want to make sure that you're raising people and have a society that values life. I think that's at the core exactly. And getting and getting rid of three ugly words when they're put together and the words are I don't care. If we can, if we can teach your young people to read that language out of out of their their mind view of not caring, I think we have a better. Society is with Joe. I appreciate the call, buddy, thanks for making it and to have a great weekend. Hey you do to say, all right, I'm gonna well, I am going to try. I am absolutely going to try my hardest. Thank you, Joe. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape ape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina? Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Ashville is your connection. Whether you're celebrating an anniversary, a honeymoon, maybe you want to plan a memorable proposal, or get family and friends together for a big old reunion. Cabins of Asheville has the ideal spot for you where you can reconnect with your loved ones and the things that truly matter. 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I will hang over on his show for a segment he likes to call the hangover and uh Brett, Welcome, sir. It's good to be with you. Good glad you're back from your excursion up to the swamp last week. Yes, I was not. I did not get you know, assimilated. Good. I'm not assimilated in this no swamp fever contrala. That no, not really good. Meet anybody famous or. Yes? Okay, game besides you? No, no, no no. But we had a whole bunch of people coming through, so it was right. It was. It was good and a lot a lot of them were the worker. Bees, which is an important thing because these people were definitely working hard to get that messaging out. Yeah. So I don't know if you were just listening. We were talking. I got a call from a guy named Joe. You were talking about guns in school and stuff, and he suggested that we make martial arts a mandatory class. Yes for K twelve? You like it? Okay, Rob mcga, I okay, So I don't know if I see. So here's my concern is that I've seen the documentary Karate Kid, and I think that I think you could end up with some with some bad Johnny apples in there. Not really, and now they're going to be highly trained, yes, but if they're bad apples like Daniel was that, I. Feel Daniel was not a bad apple. Oh he he was Daniel. He was the villain of that story. Wow yeah, wow, we think about it. It's true. Have you ever seen this yellow car? There's been a write up on this very thing they put They spliced it all together. If like, so he's the problem. Yes, he completely overreacts all the time, like when they're on the beach and he bashes poor Johnny's radio and stuff. But what about Sato? When Sato was that was like karate Kid for I. Think, oh yeah, I don't know. I think I saw how many of them have you seen? I think just one? Maybe it is just the first one. No, I saw the second one where he was doing the kick, but I saw it come in when he's on the stump on the beach or whatever, like I saw that coming because it was the same movie again. So, but Kravmagod would be an equalizer. Everybody would would be trained in the same sort of way. But here's the thing. If you're in the class like you and I are in the class together. And let's say I'm the bully, okay, and I know, like, because I can see you, because we're in the same class. I can see if, like, what your skill level is and whether you're keeping up with my skill level. And when I know if I'm a bully, I'm gonna know which kids won't be able to employ the tactics against me, and so then I can I can go in then hurt them very easily, you know what I mean. I feel like they're okay. So you got two choices. I don't like false choices, and I only get two options. Mar martial arts Marshall marsh martial arts where you get those like burner less than lethal oh uh, ceramic gun things that you can use if I mean, if suddenly there's problems. So rather than so, the idea the general Assembly is allow teachers to conceal carry if they choose on campus at private schools only. And your answer, O answer is that arm the kids, give all the kids guns. No, no, let's be called firearms, not firearms, right, whatever the burner thing I'm saying. But if you're not going to let them do martial arts, you have to have the teacher I would give the teacher the kinetic weapon that is less than. Leath, but a kid with the kraft maga krav magat would be able to take out that teacher. Everybody should be trained in it. Are you trained in it? Would you tell me if you were? I would not. Let's see, I would not. I figured you would not. I would not. I is that rule one? Well, you could use whatever martial art you want. Yeah, judo judo is fine. It's it's it's you know, a lot of flips and things like that. Yeah. Yeah, using inertia and all that. I liked. So and this is what I told Joe what he called I like the idea because people who who go down and get this training and stuff, they they have a much better mindset about, yes, the use of violent right, because they understand now fully what it. Is the degrees of violence that you can use. And in addition, we're getting rid of the obesity problem because people will be in like super tight shape. It's one of the things I never really understood was the overweight karate instructors. You don't really see to have many. It's maybe because they've got there. They've got like multiple belts and they're you know, they'regither. Eventually you're gonna kind of retire or be of council as they would say. I am emeritus, but I do have an you know, remember back in because you know you and I remember back in the day, like the Bruce Lee movies. And stuff like that, you know Channel nine w R and and you know it would be like, don't go near him. He can be in two locations at the same time and has a seventeenth degree black bright. And the throwing stars. I thought I was going to tell you. I thought I was going to be dead by the age of like sixteen. Did you have throwing stars? I thought I was going to get killed by either the throwing stars or quicksand that was it. I always I always thought quicksand I actually got stuck in Quicksand one time, did you really? On the West Coast in Venture. Adventure California, I stooped went by myself to the beach and I went and I didn't want to walk the path, so I went, I cut across and I got down into Quicksand how quick was it? It's not as quick as you think, but you quickly get nervous and it went right up to like my waist. No. Yeah, and I had to like basically. Crawl out. No, but how do use some of my martial arts to get Oh my god? I levitated at it? You levitated at like Bruce Laye. No, but I just jumped and threw myself onto like a sand bank. Yeah. And then I was like, I'm not going back there anymore. Did you like put up some cones or something around it, warning quicksand? Look, That's what I was always advised too, that there's always a sign that says warning quick sand I. Always thought that quick quicksand was going to be a much bigger deal. I throwing stars, not not as much numb jucks, yes, numb jucks Like that was like the top of the line. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and don't break anything while I'm gone,