Haywood superintendent back at work after controversial post

BY CORY VAILLANCOURT S TAFF WRITER

After being temporarily relieved of his day-to-day duties on July 13 following a controversial July 10 Facebook post, Haywood County Schools Superintendent Dr. Bill Nolte has been fully reinstated after an investigation by the Haywood County Schools Board of Education.

“I think if you look at what happened, he made a mistake, we took action as a board, we took what happened very seriously, we did our investigation and found really no racism or bias,” Chairman Chuck Francis told The Smoky Mountain News July 27.

During a special called board meeting held July 22, Francis read the following statement regarding Nolte’s “post on social media that could be considered offensive or insensitive.”

… this board directed Dr. Nolte to meet with members of the community, hear their comments and concerns and develop a plan that would not only bring about healing but also set the framework to address inequalities as we move forward.

These actions were not taken as a form of punishment nor as a political statement, but as a responsibility and duty of our elected offices.

During this time an investigation took place to examine the whole of the body of work of Dr. Nolte’s tenure with Haywood County Schools, the investigation found no pattern of bias or racism.

In fact, it is fair to say that Dr. Nolte’s career with Haywood County Schools has been one of exemplary service and community mindedness.

Furthermore, Dr. Nolte, upon recognizing the post was hurtful to others, removed the post and quickly apologized.

In our world today, the highest mark of charHAYWOOD, CONTINUED FROM 6 County came at the end of April, and have since grown steadily. At the end of May, there were 53 cases. At the end of June, there were 91. On July 24, Haywood County reported its first two coronavirus-related deaths. As of press time on July 28, there had been 247 cases in Haywood County.

On the subject of infrastructure, Francis said that he’s happy with the job administrators like Nolte, Putnam and Barker have done in trying to make in-person learning as safe as possible through the prudent use of school facilities.

“It really will revolve around how many come back to school,” he said, noting that he doesn’t expect to see anything approaching 100 percent capacity once students are able to avail themselves of the in-person option.

“We’ve got to be very careful, and if things don’t improve, we’ll just have to stay on remote learning,” Francis said.

The other issue that will have to be sorted out is staffing.

“We’ve weighed that against what would be best for everybody,” Francis said. “That’s tough. There’s going to be some people who acter is to recognize a mistake, apologize and seek forgiveness.

Tonight, Dr. Nolte has submitted the action plan as requested, and it will be attached with this announcement.

He has met with members of the community, to include the Haywood County NAACP and the MLK Committee, as well as other citizens.

Dr. Nolte and this board are committed to continue to review the policies of Haywood County Schools, and make changes to ensure equality and equity for all students.

After the statement was read, Board Member David Burnett moved to reinstate Nolte, effective immediately. The motion was seconded by Vice Chairman Jim Harley Francis, and passed unanimously. Board member Ann Barrett was absent, and fellow are terrified at coming back to work. Some have health issues. I understand that. Then you have some people who aren’t as concerned about the risk. In society today, we’ve got people that say it’s all a hoax, and then we’ve got people who say it’s terribly dangerous and everybody’s going to die. How do you wade through that? It’s going to take the whole community to come together and make that work.”

Haywood’s reopening strategy is authorized as Plan B, Option F of the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction’s Guidebook for Reopening Public Schools. The process, according to HCS, will be monitored in order to determine if it’s even possible for students to return for in-person learning on Sept. 21.

“We’re pretty confident that we have a lot of people who think the Plan B Option F is a viable plan,” Nolte said. “First of all, that plan is and has been for quite some time a resource that has been vetted by North Carolina Health and Human Services, by the governor, by the state Department of Public Instruction, by the state Board of Education and other people who have looked at it locally. We’ve spent

Dr. Bill Nolte accepts the HCS superintendent position in July, 2018.

Cory Vaillancourt photo

board member Ronnie Clark joined the meeting by telephone.

“I understood they wanted me to focus on developing a plan or process moving forward, and I probably would have done something very similar had I been in their shoes,” Nolte said.

The plan, submitted by Nolte, details the steps he took during the investigation, which included “personal reflection, learning more about bias and meeting with people with varying beliefs and ideas about moving forward.”

Included in the plan is a list of more than two dozen people Nolte spoke with, but Nolte added that dozens of others sent him emails and text messages.

“I learned that we’re in a very divided society. I think probably we already knew that, some time talking with Dr. Jaben and Patrick Johnson, and local pediatricians. That plan is not just something we drew up out of the air.”

The press release from HCS says that the system “ … will transition to in-person learning when safety regulations, staffing availability, and other critical factors permit. Remote learning will be available to all students who do not choose to access in-person learning. The school system will continue to comply with all state laws, regulations, and orders.”

Nolte said that administrators would begin meeting with small groups of school principals on July 23 to work out further details, and that additional information would be shared with employees, students and parents soon.

The decision to adopt the plan wasn’t without dissent. During the July 22 board meeting, HCS Board Member Steven Kirkpatrick was the sole dissenter, citing a problem familiar to thousands of Western North Carolina families — the lack of reliable broadband internet access.

When asked what he’d say to legislators in Raleigh about rural broadband initiatives, based on national news coverage. There were large groups of people from various backgrounds, various races, who told me to stop talking about the event and to move forward in a positive way. That was the majority of people that I spoke with,” Nolte said. “Some of those folks were very unhappy about the post, and some of them said they understood why I would have posted and that I didn’t mean any harm. There were certainly people on either end of the continuum. Most of them said to me, we need to be unified, we’ll be better off together.”

The plan also details what actions will be taken going forward to foster unity and limit divisive bias within Haywood County Schools.

“I think the plan is a good start and the thing the board wanted to make clear was that it’s not just Dr. Nolte, the board’s going to be included in the overall plan,” Francis said.

Implicit bias training will be identified and implemented beginning with the superintendent and Board of Education members, according to the plan, but Francis said he hoped it would also end up being presented to teachers and students as well.

A committee will also be established to advise the superintendent regarding these efforts.

“The committee will include individuals from the local community and schools who have a diverse range of perspectives and experiences,” reads the plan. “School Board Policies will be reviewed to assure they promote unity and limit bias. The North Carolina School Boards Association will be used as a resource for the review. This work will begin with examining ways to address non-school displays that cause disruptions,

are divisive, and hinder unity.” Francis said it’s long past time WNC starts seeing progress on the issue.

“I’d say they need to invest in the infrastructure to make that happen for these kids in rural areas,” he said. “Western North Carolina needs to be included. Industry will come with that as well. I think it would be a great thing for our kids’ future. I know there’s been a big push for it for a lot of years, but action is what we need now.”

Until that happens, Francis is calling on the community to help make the school year as successful as possible.

Some community leaders have already responded. During the meeting, HCS Board Member Dr. Bobby Rogers — who is also senior pastor at Dellwood Baptist Church—– said his church would offer up free internet access to any student who needed it.

“As we speak, they’re installing the infrastructure to be able to get that done,” Francis said. “Bobby has also challenged other churches in the community.”

Francis also said that by the end of the meeting, he’d also received messages from other church and nonprofit leaders who’d offered up similar services.