Gaston County Schools challenges sex abuse lawsuit, NC SAFE Child Act
Gaston County Schools claims a lawsuit filed against the district last year isn’t constitutional.
Represented by Lanier Law Group, the victims filed the lawsuit in the same year that Senate Bill 199 – a new law also referred to as the SAFE Child Act that better protects children from sexual abuse – took effect. SAFE Child Act expires on Dec. 31, 2021.
North Carolina’s SAFE Child Act gives victims the opportunity to revive their claims that were previously time barred – in this case by N.C. General Statute 1-52 – said Lisa Lanier of Lanier Law Group.
Former Gaston County principal, school board member dies
A former Gaston County Schools’ principal and board of education member died Sunday.
Terry Usery, born June 1, 1952, died on Valentine s Day, according to Gaston County Schools. He was 68.
Although an official cause of death wasn t available, friends of Usery believe he died from complications with COVID-19.
Usery dedicated his entire life to education, friends said, describing him as a devout educator, Christian and musician.
The Clover, S.C. native served Gaston County Schools for nearly four decades.
Usery’s Gaston County teaching career began in August 1974, according to Gaston County Schools. He taught students of Tryon, Carr and Page elementary schools over the next 15 years. He was also a school bus driver, according to the school district.
Students at Gaston County Schools have yet another choice in educational programs and pathways.
Denise McLean, Gaston County Schools’ executive director of student support services, recently announced the launch of the Gaston Early College of Medical Sciences – a healthcare-driven high school with four- and five-year pathways – ahead of the 2021-22 school year.
It’s the school districts 21st student choice program ever to be offered.
Students can earn their high school diploma, as well as an associate degree from Gaston College, while sticking to one of a number of concentrations, which include nursing, human services, human services technology, pre-medicine, biotechnology and medical office administration.
Gaston County Schools’ youngest students will return to school four days a week starting March 1.
In a 7-2 vote Monday, Gaston County school board members moved to send the county’s public elementary students back to school for in-person instruction four days a week.
Rather than one group of students coming to school for in-person learning Monday and Tuesday and the other group on Thursday and Friday, both groups of students will come to school all four days.
While teachers were already conducting in-person instruction four days a week, in March, the number of students in each classroom will be increased to about the size of a class prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Pride or appropriation? Two North Carolina towns are the sites of fierce battles over American Indian imagery.
Brian Gordon
USA TODAY NETWORK
The mascot for South Point High School Red Raiders is an American Indian man with an earring and a long feather running alongside a mohawk. It’s an image Isabella Lanford would like to erase.
Lanford grew up in Belmont, a small city in Gaston County near Charlotte. In the mid-2010s, she attended Belmont Middle School (nickname: the Wildcats) and thought she’d join her classmates for the ninth grade at South Point High.
A home football game changed her mind. Lanford, a Lumbee Indian, saw South Point fans in face paint carrying fake tomahawks. Most of the crowd was white. When the Red Raiders scored, many cupped their hands over their mouths and released stereotypical Native American war cries.