NEW HANOVER COUNTY — Aside from the school board voting to end the superintendent’s contract Tuesday, it also amended controversial policies and took up capital needs of an area high school, with the goal to float a bond to commissioners.
READ MORE: NHC school board fires Superintendent Foust
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The New Hanover School Board met for more than five hours Tuesday. A great deal of focus was on its recently released climate survey and the board’s hour-and-a-half closed session before firing Superintendent Foust. But here is the outcome of other discussions that also took place.
Policy amendments
At the meeting, board members once again litigated policies 3200 and 7200, which impose restrictions on displays in classrooms, school buildings, school grounds, and buses.
The board voted unanimously to amend the policies for the third time to reinstate family photos, student artwork, and military flags as approved displays.
While most board members thought family photos should be added back to the list, Pat Bradford defended her vote to remove them.
“That was the reason for this, and I stick by it,” she said. “You can have 20 family pictures on your desk, it’s not a display — well, that might be at 20. But if they’re all wearing a sweatshirt that has the Nazi symbol on it, then we’re probably gonna have a problem.”
Added to the agenda at the last minute by Bradford at the board’s May 7 meeting, the two policies limited classroom and school building displays to content related to the United States, North Carolina, New Hanover County, the individual school or its mascot, and district curricula.
Since then, the policies have undergone numerous changes — gaining and losing various aspects. Initially, a late May meeting reinstated displays of any nation, post-secondary institutions, school-sponsored events, sponsorships, family photos, and student artwork to the approved list, only for these additions to be removed again at the June 4 meeting.
It’s led to a lot of confusion among staff and teachers, even some school board members, down to how the word “display” can be interpreted. Mason said, for instance, artwork was always allowed since it’s part of curriculum, as the policy covers that artwork and flags used as learning material are allowed.
However, Wildeboer and Melissa Mason did bring forth definitions of the word “display,” as requested by Superintendent Foust to help with the direction and implementation of the policy moving forward.
They settled on: “make a prominent exhibition of something in a place where it can easily be seen.”
But Walker took issue with it, in that it didn’t clarify whether social media would be considered a display. She also was clear she didn’t support the policy and wanted to strike through all of its language.
The social media issue was brought up due to two board members requesting a Pride post be removed from NHCS social media in June, citing the policy as its reasoning. Walker told PCD then she questioned whether social media is considered a display.
At the school board meeting Tuesday, she said: “I felt like it was disrespectful to put a post up that was clearly acknowledging our LGBTQ plus folks, and for it to be removed a few hours later was very disturbing to me, based on whatever excuse it was, whether it was display or not, I don’t know. But if we’re going to be clear about displays, please go ahead and get that over with.”
Mason added she also didn’t think social media counted as a display.
Walker brought up the need for clarification and Wildeboer raised a motion to bring it to the next policy committee meeting to establish a definition for social media posts within the policy, but no board member seconded the motion, resulting in its failure.
Wildeboer put forth a motion to include international flags on the approved list of displays, but some board members raised concerns, leading to its exclusion. Bradford thought allowing international flags would allow for activism to be present — the reason she suggested the policy changes to begin with.
“You need to think that through,” she said to Wildeboer. “You’re opening that can of worms up to — you open it up to activism for the flag of the country.”
Walker and Hugh McManus thought excluding international flags was a non-issue, but added the policy overall was a potential violation of First Amendment rights.
“And I hope to God somebody sues you,” McManus told Bradford.
“That’s why we have free speech,” Walker added. “And that is honoring the Constitution.”
She suggested that if an incident, like a protest or riot due to international flags were to occur, it could be handled on a case-by-case basis.
Bradford originally proposed the policies to the board as an emergency addition at the beginning of May, then citing a pro-Palestinian protest at UNC-Chapel Hill, leading to students also removing an American flag. However at Tuesday’s meeting, she and board Chair Pete Wildeboer said the policy was brought up due to instances at New Hanover County graduations, which took place nearly a month later.
Wildeboer said he wouldn’t name the school where an unspecified flag incident occurred, but he said he observed a student about to do something inappropriate at a graduation. Bradford added to this, noting at a different graduation she heard about — but did not see — a student about to unroll an American flag.
“At another school, that same Friday night, we had a student attempt to unfurl a flag that could have caused some sort of riots situation,” Bradford said to the board. “That was the whole point of the policy, bringing it in the beginning.”
She added she was being “proactive” rather than “reactive.”
McManus thought the policies were an example of the board pushing politics over needs in the school, as pointed out in the recently released climate survey. It was taken by some 2,000 teachers and staff, 80% of whom called the board “out of touch” with needs that take place in the classroom.
“This will destroy our teaching staff with this fear,” McManus said, adding they’re inciting fear in staff on how to proceed, “and the ones who have longevity are leaving.”
Bradford questioned the pushback the policies have received, insinuating it is an indicator of their importance and perhaps more activism is placed in the classroom than the board once perceived.
“We’re here to teach children how to think, not what to think,” she said at the meeting.
Some audience members erupted in applause.
“And if what you need on the wall doesn’t do that, then maybe your career path needs to be questioned,” she directed to staff and teachers. “If all you care about is the activism of your ideology being displayed on the walls, then there’s a problem.”
New Hanover High School capital needs
The school board floated the bond discussion again Tuesday and the looming issue of needed repairs at New Hanover High School. It’s been brought up multiple times by the current board, but the school’s issues go back at least 20 years.
Repairs to the high school have been on the capital funding request for a while now. In 2021 the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights initiated an investigation into allegations of inadequate facilities provided to New Hanover High School, which serves a predominantly Black and Hispanic student population. The investigation is still open.
Allison McWhorter and Kassie Rempel, founders of AdvoCats — a nonprofit that specifically supports New Hanover High School — presented to the board the building’s structural issues. A slide deck of information and pictures showed safety concerns at the entrance, sewer leaks, sagging ceilings, and outdated facilities.
“Our fates have fallen on deaf ears and have left students to navigate an unsafe and unhealthy environment every day,” McWhorter said. “Are you waiting for a student to actually be seriously hurt or chronically ill to take action?”
The presentation was brought to the agenda by board member Stephanie Walker, who went to school at NHHS in the ‘90s. She said it was up to the board to elevate the conversation and bring it to commissioners’ attention.
“We don’t need to sugarcoat it anymore; Hanover needs attention now,” Walker said. “We just had budget discussions, but I’ll also say that, even though our county commissioners are not obligated to us operationally, they are for our buildings. And so they need to understand the importance.”
Assistant Superintendent Eddie Anderson said at the meeting repairs to the high school could cost around $90 million.
The commissioners did not agree to give the school board more money for capital needs this year, noting that the district already has $11 million in capital funding that should be used first. That money has already been appropriated.
“Mr. Chair, you said less talking more action,” Bradford told Wildeboer. “So let’s get something done. Let’s vote to ask [commissioners] to start the process to do the bond. And then the other motion would be to fund this survey.”
The board voted unanimously Tuesday to ask commissioners for $300,000 to conduct a survey to identify the condition of New Hanover High School and highlight areas that will be focal points for improvement.
The survey would include destructive and geotech testing methods.
While all board members were eager to propose to the commissioners a referendum for a 2026 bond to secure funding for the project, Anderson proposed that the board first convene a work session to formulate a plan. He was clear the commissioners are going to want details before agreeing to anything.
“What projects are going to be on it? And how much is it going to be?” he offered at the meeting. “We as a school system and the board need to do a little preparation work before we go to the county commissioners.”
[Ed. note: The article has been updated to clarify Bradford did not witness a flag unfurling at a graduation event, but only heard about it.]
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