A seemingly innocuous phone call that Alamance County commissioner chairman John Paisley, Jr. made to school board chairman Sandy Ellington-Graves on Thursday, July 11, to suggest the name of someone that the board might want to consider for the vacant superintendent’s position – appears to have since ruffled the feathers of several other school board members.
UPDATE ON SUPT. SEARCH?: SPECIAL CALLED SCHOOL BOARD MEETING SCHEDULED FOR MONDAY. Could the school board be ready to announce a new superintendent?
A notice has been sent out for a special-called meeting on Monday afternoon, July 29, at 2:00 p.m. The notice says that the purpose is to consider confidential personnel information and consult with the board’s attorney – the two closed session purposes which the board has used to interview candidates over the past month. The notice says the board will adjourn into another closed session.
But speculation has grown that the meeting may include an announcement inasmuch as the original search schedule adopted by the board set a target announcement date of July 15.
Several board members told The Alamance News Wednesday that they felt pressured to consider a superintendent for the former Burlington city school system – though his name surfaced well after the application deadline had passed on May 27.
In separate interviews Wednesday morning with The Alamance News, both Paisley and Ellington-Graves gave the same accounts of their phone conversation on July 11.
The school board chairman recalled – and the commissioners’ chairman acknowledged – that Paisley had called Ellington-Graves on July 11 to suggest that the school board might want to consider a former Burlington city schools superintendent, James Surratt, for the superintendent’s position.
Surratt had served as the superintendent of the former city schools system prior to the merger with the former county school system in 1996 and later went on to serve as a superintendent in Wake County and in Texas.
Ellington-Graves said she’d told Paisley she would make the search firm aware – the search for the next superintendent of ABSS is being conducted by the North Carolina School Boards Association (NCSBA) and led by NCSBA attorney Sam Thorp.
“I did so in an email to the board and Mr. Thorp on July 12,” Ellington-Graves recalled Wednesday. The search consultant advised the board to talk about it at its next closed session meeting, held July 17 to review applicant materials, she said, noting that under the terms of the contract with the NCSBA, “board members are not to have direct contact with individual candidates.”
Ellington-Graves told the newspaper that she hadn’t promised the commissioners’ chairman that she, or the search consultant, would contact Surratt. Nor did she indicate in the interview that she had perceived Paisley’s phone call as intended to pressure her into interviewing Surratt or any other individual.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s improper; it’s just we’re pushing everything to the search firm,” the school board chairman told the newspaper. “We are trying to follow the process that we told the public we would follow.”
“Though we were appreciative of Mr. Paisley’s suggestion, there was no desire by the board to pursue a candidate outside of the parameters of the search process,” Ellington-Graves added.
By his account, Paisley called Ellington-Graves and gave her Surratt’s name and telephone number, Paisley recalled in an interview Wednesday morning.
“I understood there was a possible interest, and he was superintendent of the Burlington school system, when it was one of the top five in the state consistently,” Paisley said. “I simply gave her the name, telephone number, and told her he was really good, and [why]. I certainly did not try to pressure her or anything. I felt like she was the chair and had a handle on where they were in the process.”
Pressed about whether he’d attempted to exert any influence over the board’s deliberations, Paisley flatly rejected the idea that he’d been trying to pull rank by simply offering a suggestion.
“I would hope not,” he said Wednesday. “I’m a county commissioner – not a school board member.” Paisley said he hadn’t contacted any other board members to offer up Surratt’s name as a possible contender.
Phone call from former assistant superintendent attributed to Paisley
However, a similar suggestion offered by a retired assistant superintendent for the former Burlington city schools system, Bob Poindexter, has been interpreted by some school board members as having been made at Paisley’s urging.
A recording of a voicemail message – that Poindexter recently left with several school board members – was also furnished to The Alamance News Wednesday morning by an anonymous tipster.
School board members Ryan Bowden, Chuck Marsh, and Seneca Rogers confirmed for the newspaper Wednesday that they each had received a voicemail message from Poindexter.
Bowden, Marsh, and Rogers each confirmed separately Wednesday that they hadn’t been contacted about potential superintendent candidates by any other community members except Poindexter.
School board vice chairman Donna Westbrooks said, “I have not personally received any contacts from persons encouraging the board to hire anyone in particular.”
Stay in your lane
“I have been contacted via voicemail by a community member, Mr. Bob Poindexter earlier this week,” Bowden wrote in an email response to the newspaper’s inquiry Wednesday. It’s my understanding he was reaching out on behalf of Chairman Paisley with the Alamance County Commissioners. It’s also my understanding that other commissioners were NOT aware that someone was reaching out to school board members about the Superintendent vacancy. The messaging seemed to speak on behalf of all Commissioners but I have since learned that was not the case. Apparently Mr. Paisley and Mr. Poindexter were in communication with one another and Mr. Poindexter was relaying information on behalf of Mr. Paisley.
DON’T STRONG ARM SCHOOL BOARD; PAISLEY SHOULD ‘STAY IN HIS LANE’
“If the candidate that Mr. Paisley and or Mr. Poindexter was interested in our Superintendent vacancy, then that individual should have applied during the open application process. That was not the case.
“Speaking as an individual board member I’m disappointed that the chairman seems to think he can strong arm or apply pressure to our board in order to get something he wants. These types of backdoor actions do absolutely nothing to help mend relationships between the two boards. Something that is desperately needed for ALL citizens of Alamance County. I would respectfully ask Mr. Paisley to please stay in his lane.”
– School board member Ryan Bowden
“If the candidate that Mr. Paisley and or Mr. Poindexter was interested in our Superintendent vacancy then that individual should have applied during the open application process,” Bowden elaborated. “That was not the case.
“Speaking as an individual board member I’m disappointed that the chairman seems to think he can strong arm or apply pressure to our board in order to get something he wants,” Bowden wrote. “These types of backdoor actions do absolutely nothing to help mend relationships between the two boards. Something that is desperately needed for ALL citizens of Alamance County. I would respectfully ask Mr. Paisley to please stay in his lane.”
For his part, Marsh said he’d also interpreted the phone call from Poindexter as end-run around the confidential search process that the board agreed in May to use to hire a permanent successor to former superintendent Dr. Dain Butler, who resigned on March 4, 2024 after 20 months at the helm.
“I have not had any others ask me or put any pressure on me or ask me to give their friend special treatment. My issue is that if we do not walk the line with Mr. Paisley, he fights against us and will continue to throw his board of commissioner Chair position around like he has so many other times before.
“He’s asking us to interview someone who hasn’t sent a resume to our board and weeks after the application window has closed. He knows it, but as so many times before, he uses [his] political power to gain favor. I don’t think it’s right to ask for all of the other Candidates to do one thing, and a county commissioner to be able to pull rank and his candidate gets to skate the rules. Again, if we don’t, he withholds dollars to help our kids (in my opinion).”
– School board member Chuck Marsh
“I do not know this person, but after asking another board colleague, they tell me that this is Bob Poindexter, a friend of Mr. John Paisley,” Marsh wrote in an email response to the newspaper’s inquiry Wednesday. “Again, I’ve never met this person, nor have I ever spoke to this person. Just this out of the blue, random call. I have not had any others ask me or put any pressure on me or ask me to give their friend special treatment. “My issue is that if we do not walk the line with Mr. Paisley, he fights against us and will continue to throw his board of commissioner Chair position around like he has so many other times before,” Marsh wrote. “He’s asking us to interview someone who hasn’t sent a resume to our board and weeks after the application window has closed. He knows it, but as so many times before, he uses [his] political power to gain favor. I don’t think it’s right to ask for all of the other Candidates to do one thing, and a county commissioner to be able to pull rank and his candidate gets to skate the rules. Again, if we don’t, he withholds dollars to help our kids (in my opinion).”
Rogers said he, too, had received a similar phone call from Poindexter but didn’t want to upend the search process that was already well underway.
ABSS had initially set a tentative date of July 15 to announce the name of the new superintendent. That announcement remains pending. There has been some behind-the-scenes speculation that an announcement could come as early as within the next week.
“I felt like we were already in a process and anything that was outside of that, I didn’t feel like that would be fair to the people who applied. We had a period for people to apply for superintendent. To go outside the integrity of that process, I didn’t feel would be fair.” – School board member Seneca Rogers
“I felt like we were already in a process and anything that was outside of that, I didn’t feel like that would be fair to the people who applied,” Rogers said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We had a period for people to apply for superintendent.
“To go outside the integrity of that process, I didn’t feel would be fair,” Rogers explained. “I think that wouldn’t be fair to our school system and the people who went through the process. I was contacted by a person – I think his name was Poindexter. I just received a voicemail and he ended up speaking [about] the same information we received [through our board chair in her July 12 email about the call from Paisley].”
ABSS interim superintendent Dr. Bill Harrison told the newspaper Wednesday that he hadn’t been contacted by anyone about potential candidates to be considered for the permanent post.
School board members Dan Ingle and Dr. Charles Parker hadn’t responded to an inquiry by press time Wednesday night.
