Dear NC Congressman and Senator:
I’m sure you’ve seen the email exchange between Sarah Wiles (Teacher CMS) and Dr. David Curtis. If not, here’s a link (http://wunc.org/post/teacher-email-legislators-draws-harsh-reply) that provides access to both letters.
I’ve never considered myself an activist. I’ve thought of my years in education as service. The email exchange mentioned above has raised a great deal of discussion in educational communities across the United States. It’s been talked about on blogs and forums. Unlike Ms. Wiles I am not ashamed to be a NC educator. However, events of this last year have deeply concerned me and made me hesitant to recommend education to others. I was not necessarily an advocate for increased pay. It would have been wonderful, but I read the news, I know times have been tough.
However, added to very little pay increase, we’ve had the following:
NC Legislature’s flippant attitude toward tenure and masters pay greatly discouraged teachers. For many who were working on their masters, there was no way they could finish by the first deadline or even the extended deadline.
The state adopted a curriculum (CCSS) that required a large amount of training, lesson redesign and planning. We are now hearing CCSS may not be continued. I’m not saying it should, but the man hours involved in implementing something this massive should be taken into consideration. I am willing to be trained and trained again, but that training takes time to digest and implement. It certainly would have been better for students, teachers and parents if this had been considered before CCSS was adopted in the first place.
Testing is high stakes and incredibly time consuming. I was encouraged several years ago when it looked like we were dropping some of our EOCs, but now our schools are consumed with testing. Reading tests determine whether 3rd grades will go to summer school. Parts of the teacher evaluation are determined by student test scores. How can these tests be anything but high stakes. Obviously testing has not had the desired effect of increased learning only increased anxiety. Data, fidelity and rigor have become the watch words for anything done in classes. However, children learn many things in a school year that can not be quantified on a test.
My family has contributed financially toward an unknown number of school supplies, books, uniforms and summer camps for students they never knew in any other way than that they were in my classes or my school. My family is not alone in this. Most teachers I know give without thought to their students, their classrooms, their schools and communities.
And then there is the pay. It doesn’t take much of a search to find teachers leaving NC for states that pay more. We are losing teachers who have been recognized for their great teaching. We are losing experience and energy and compassion. Our loss means other states gain.
Now we have Dr. Curtis’s email (conveniently sent to all the NC Senate) explaining that teachers are greedy. We’ve let a non-existing union sway our thinking. He doesn’t understand that we are 10 month and not 12 month employees, so I’m sure he doesn’t understand that any summer employment is cut short when the school district insists we work contracted days in the summer because we got bad weather days “off”. He is equally sure our poor attitudes are being relayed to our students.
So, I would like to know about your educational agenda. Do you agree with Dr. Curtis? I’d like to know what you think of NC teachers and the future of NC schools and consequently their students. What plans are in place to address the poverty that infects so many families of the students we teach? What can we as a state do to change attitudes about learning for the positive? How can we give students and teachers more time for learning and reduce the time dedicated to testing?
I want education in NC to be top notch. I want our children to be in environments where they can’t help but learn. I want our schools to be exemplar. A child’s learning environment, however, is a teacher’s work environment. The two are linked in such a way they can never be considered as separate concerns.
Sincerely,
Bitsy Griffin
Jack Of All Trades 
Forget about Waldo – Where has NC Senator, David Curtis been Hiding?
A Victim Speaks with an Open Letter to North Carolina Citizens.
The last time I had the displeasure of meeting with him was at a local bank on Hwy 16 in Denver, North Carolina and Dr. David Curtis was lining his pockets with a large sum of money from my family’s bank account, in which we thought was a legitimate real estate purchase.
I wish no ill will on anyone, but I feel it is my moral obligation to inform North Carolina citizens about my families experience with a North Carolina Senator, Dr. David Curtis. He says he is looking for ‘informed’ voters, so let me help him. I am not asking anyone to vote one way or another in his next election. In fact, I want to be sure you know that I don’t have any dogs in this 44th District Senate fight. I don’t live in North Carolina, I don’t vote in North Carolina and I have no political agenda in North Carolina. However, I do want to give the citizens a close up view of the real Dr. David Curtis. We are so sick and tired of having Curtis tell everyone what a great Christian he is and what a great philanthropist he is. He is so puffed up with his own self-worth. He has placed inexcusable irreparable hardships and sufferings upon my family. In my opinion, Dr. David Curtis is the most horrible human being I ever met in my life.
If there ever were such a thing as a pure devastating evil – it would be him.
Here is the brief story straight forward, backed up with facts, documents, notarized signatures and we have a complete mountain of evidence against Curtis.
My wife and I responded to an ad in a newspaper for a medical office building for sale in the Lake Norman area with owner financing. (Curtis’s first lie… he was using an unlicensed real estate agent, and the building was encumbered with $200,000.00 in debt). David Curtis was the seller of this office building. We purchased the building and Curtis issued to us a full Warranty Deed, where he signs and notarizes and transfers it to us. He had his good “FRIEND”, the attorney, Lincoln County Attorney, Wesley L Deaton, draw up the closing papers. Soon after the real estate closing, my wife became very ill and she spent the next several months in a cancer hospital in Florida, where she later died. Meanwhile, months after the closing, we continued to make the monthly mortgage payments to David Curtis. However, the great opportunists that Curtis is, he took advantage of the hardships of others. While my young and beautiful wife was dying of cancer in Florida, Curtis was busy with his schemes.
He created at least five sham deeds to cloud our title and then transfer the property to a shell LLC, and if you follow the money trail, the office building was later discovered transferred to his good ‘friend’, the closing attorney, Wesley L Deaton, into a North Carolina LLC. Yes, you heard it right, the attorney Wesley L. Deaton, that handled the sale ‘purchased’ the building and is now occupying the building as his law office to this date. On one notable date, while David Curtis was having his signature notarized for another sham deed, he was endorsing the back of our check we sent him for our mortgage payment. We now have copies of these follow on deeds, and cancelled checks that Curtis signed. The facts don’t lie. We have certified copies of every one of these deeds from the County Clerk.
Simply put, within 90 days of us buying an office building, putting down a substantial down payment, making the monthly mortgage payments, all of our money was gone. Despite numerous phone calls, letters and emails to Curtis, we were left with nothing. No building. No money. Nothing. Curtis would not respond to our phone calls, emails or certified letters; he was ‘hiding out’.
As a result of these unethical acts by Curtis; he was unjustly enriched by selling the building twice.
In my opinion, David Curtis lacks a moral compass, he has no explanations or solutions. He simply took our money and ran, with no remorse.
Bottom line, if you gave somebody a lot of money for a piece of property and you received nothing in return – What would you call it?
“Evil Triumphs When Good Men Do Nothing”
If you have been a victim of this man email us at : ratsnc@yahoo.com
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