BY MICHAEL KUBINIEC

In February of 2025, certain Iredell-Statesville Schools administrators were given an opportunity to rate the Board of Education members in a survey. Results were released and published in the Iredell Free News.

Here are a sampling of comments made which provide interesting insight into our school district. Quotes from the survey are verbatim and without edit:

♦ “I feel the majority of the School Board supports the academic efforts of the ISS Teachers and Staff. There are a few members (Mr. Kubiniec and Mr. Sloan) that want to bully and make threats towards ISS teachers and Staff. These same board members always want to make it about them and not the work.“

♦ “The result of most policy votes by the majority does help provide policies that look at helping students; however, if the three board members – Phelps [Micah Phelps’s] puppets had their way, we would resort back to Adolf Hilter’s days by doing everything to eliminate support for anyone not white.”

♦ “Several of the Board Members (Mr. Kubiniec and Mr. Sloan) make it hard to work in ISS. Their comments and statements regarding the work that is being done are an embarrassment and make working for ISS a joke. People are leaving the district because of the way certain board members act. Thank God Dr. Knight was elected Board Chair, he, Ms. Trent, Mr. Angell, and Mr. Hoke seem to be the only ones on the board working for the students. Everyone else is just trying to get their names in the paper.”

♦ “Dr. Knight, Mrs. Trent, Mr. Angel, and Mr. Hoke are trying to create a culture that would recruit and retain highly-qualified staff. However, Kubinec and Sloan are extremely divisive.”

♦ “Mike Kubinec thinks he is smarter than everyone and constantly ridicule’s, talks down to all staff. He thinks everyone is a liar and he and he alone knows how to run this district. He has cost this district great teachers-by early retirements–low turn out at recruitment activities and the reason we have to recruit overseas-no americans of merit want to work with ISS.”

♦ “The three amigo’s –aka white Supremacist Nazis have created a climate of chaos.”

♦ “Mr. Kubiniec only wants to create division within the BOE and the community. He undermines the work the educational professionals are doing every day. ISS leadership has to spend way too much time on Mr. Kubiniecs pet projects (The Giving Tree, Constitution Day Volunteers etc…) and it distracts them from getting the real work done.”

♦ “Once again, the three amigos–Phelps puppets were ran and are coached by him to constantly rail offer anything the district does–Captain Crazy violates policy on a continuous basis and then plays victim, but not as good as his counterpart Kurn. And cryin Bryan is to dumb to see he is being played. Absolute definition of dysfunction.”

♦ “It is better now that Dr. Knight is the Chair, but Mr. Kubiniec, Mr. Sloan and Mrs. Kurn always seem to want to cause disharmony and tension among the board members and ISS leadership. The job of being an educator is hard enough without the drama caused by some members of the BOE.”

♦ “Three board members are more concerned with calling everything out that isn’t them. White and entitled.”

Why was this survey done?

In August of 2024, the previous board chair, current board chair and superintendent pushed to have principals, assistant principals and central office administrators rate the board members. At the time, some board members argued that this survey would be used as a political weapon to go after certain board members to discredit and damage their reputations. This is exactly what happened since Board of Education leadership seems to be more concerned about divisive petty personal politics and denigrating their colleagues rather than improving our low-performing schools (now up to 13), working with our legislature to improve the state education system laws, advocating for increased teacher pay and school funding, improving internal processes of the school district and improving the overall academic success of our students. The intention of the survey was not to provide constructive criticism regarding the performance of school board members. Those who pushed for this survey fully intended it contain juicy commentary for publication in local media and to sow discontent across the county and to denigrate myself and others who might choose to run for re-election. These same types of antics have been going on for nearly two years. This is an embarrassment for the school district and Iredell County.

In practice, elected officials answer only to those who elected them, so what place does a principal have in rating a board member who doesn’t work directly with any of them in particular? Unlike the superintendent, a principal and assistant principal have day-to-day workings with him; not so for a school board member. Yet, these same principals and assistant principals are not involved in the superintendent’s evaluation process but somehow are tasked to survey a school board member.

Who are these “administrators” who completed this survey containing racist and downright nasty unproductive comments?

These “administrators” are your principals and assistant principals. These are the same ones that greet you and open your car doors when you drop your children off at school. They routinely give your children hugs throughout the day to lift them up. The other administrators are those in the central office, staff who make so many decisions running the school district and determine how your children will learn and grow to be well-educated, productive and prosperous citizens. These administrators are hand-picked by the superintendent for their talent, skill and growth potential to lead the school district, and they command the highest salaries, paid for by your taxes.

These are our school district leaders. They are the ones running the schools, teaching the teachers. They set high-level guidelines and direct how the schools are run. They are our highest qualified and experienced employees. I suspect and hope the numbers of these malcontents are quite small, but this small population tarnishes the reputations of those high-quality principals and assistant principals who work their butts off each and every day. The job of a principal is a very hard one – 24/7. But here we have a subset of folks who have the gall to spill their venom towards certain school board members just to tarnish reputations. So, you say I’m a white Supremacist Nazi on the school board? What does that actually mean?

Should this survey be taken seriously?

According to these administrators, three of us on the school board are white Supremacist Nazis and we “want to make our schools neo-Nazi centers for learning.” How is that not racist eliciting anti-Semitic tropes? What does that even mean? Someone commented that the Board of Education should be held to the same standard of ethics and tact expected from staff and students. Yet throughout the comments is the demeaning use of insults and childish nicknames. How is this modeling behavior you expect from staff and students? The anonymity doesn’t hide this lack of professionalism. I’d like to think civility and decorum are valued, even in the face of differences or when you disagree with someone.

How are we supposed to respond to these comments that are, for the most part, full of vitriol and hate?

These comments should be called out for exactly what they are. Whether you like me or not, like my views or not, or feel I am doing a good job or not, is not the point. I can take criticism. I have faced comments uglier than this before. But to say that these comments by ISS administrators are unprofessional is a gross understatement. Think about this: Here we have principals, assistant principals and senior central office staff making racist, antisemitic, nasty and completely unproductive comments against only certain board members. Childish naming calling. Accusing board members of being white Supremacist Nazis who care only about the white students in the school system.

With attitudes like this, it is no wonder that the public education system in our country has gone downhill for many decades and has lost much of the public trust. Why do you resort to immature name calling to denigrate those who advocate for badly needed change and want to improve the public education system for future generations?

It’s been stated that I always want to pick a fight with the county commissioners and that this has led to less school funding. That is simply not true. Over the last 15 months, I have advocated on more than one occasion to form a committee to build relationships with the Board of Education and county commissioners, a relationship marred under previous board leadership. How did that suggestion work out? It fell on deaf ears. Yet now committees are in vogue because someone else suggested it.

A cursory review of recent student math, reading and science proficiency scores both in the National Report Card and the North Carolina School Report Card shows that we are a nation in significant academic decline. If the United States is to remain the dominant western country and culture, we must achieve academic success. We are failing to do so. We have created a segregated school system — yes, a very divisive separation of children who achieve academic success and those who do not. The lines of student achievement mostly fall along socio-economic factors. Children from affluence continue to do better; children from poverty continue to do worse. Instead of doing something to address these disparate outcomes, the state’s measurement system is blamed. Shouldn’t the focus be inward – on improving proficiency in math, reading and science? In my small role, I have been sounding the alarm for two years now. What is happening is frightening for our country’s long-term geopolitical, economic and national security survival.

The superintendent, previous chair and current chair got what they wanted — a salacious diatribe of nasty comments to destroy the careers and reputations of school board members who are serving mostly out of the generosity of their time without much reward at all. High-fives all around. Iredell County parents and taxpayers, is this what you want from your school district leadership?

I chose to serve on the board because I believe in education. Public education should be the quality choice for parents. Iredell-Statesville Schools should want to be the market leader because parents want this high-quality choice. Like any business, if you fail to innovate, fail to develop new products that people want, and don’t provide consistently high-quality customer service, you will be overtaken by your competition. That is what is happening and continues to happen. I am happy to take on the challenge to improve public education in Iredell County, but current leaders fail to understand these realities. They want the status quo. Keep doing what we’re doing. Everything is fine. Don’t worry, we’ve got all the experts. We got this. We don’t need your input or new ideas. Please stop asking questions and causing trouble. They have such disdain for parents and outsiders looking in because they don’t have a master’s degree or doctorate.

You want status quo? Why? The status quo is not working. We continue to fall behind as a nation. I am not a status quo guy. No one who voted for me ever told me to just be satisfied with the status quo and to just rubber stamp everything that comes before me. You give me a $65 million budget on several small print spreadsheets and you want me to blanket approve it without any meaningful analysis or discussion? Not going to do it. If you want status quo and a rubber stamper, then go find someone else. Being an engineer and having served in technical industries my entire career, I stand for continuous improvement. If your organization, system, skillset, etc., is not continuously getting better, you will fall behind and become obsolete. If you are not questioning what you are doing, you are not getting better.

I have the utmost respect and admiration for all the teachers working tirelessly in the classroom to give our children the best education possible. It’s not the teachers failing the system, it’s the system failing the teachers.

I believe improving our public education system requires having the moral courage to have some difficult conversations and to make difficult decisions. Leadership, both at the national and local levels, has failed to effectively utilize the talents of our educator workforce and to optimize the use of available funding. Public education needs an overhaul. It’s time to do something different. I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I have some ideas for consideration. No one wants to listen. No one even wants to have the conversation. No one is allowed to present ideas that do not align with the status quo.

Michael Kubiniec is the District 5 representative of the Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education. All views, opinions, thoughts, analysis, ideas are the writers and not those of the Iredell-Statesville Schools Board of Education or school district.

Related

♦ Administrators voice strong opinions about conduct, priorities of I-SS Board of Education (March 12)

♦ I-SS administrators criticize Board of Education for lack of professionalism, creating chaos (March 14)

♦ I-SS administrators give Board of Education low marks for ethics and integrity (March 16)