Veteran educator picked as new superintendent for Wake County schools. What we know

Dr. Robert P. Taylor, a veteran educator who has headed up Bladen County’s schools and served in leadership with the State Department of Public Instruction, will be Wake County’s new superintendent.

The Wake County school board voted 8-1 Tuesday in favor of Taylor, who will earn an annual salary of $326,993 to lead North Carolina’s largest school district. Board member Cheryl Caulfield voted against Taylor, saying she supports him but couldn’t back the salary terms.

He will replace Catty Moore, who retired after five years as superintendent in a 35-year education career that began as a teacher.

The board interviewed eight of 28 candidates before choosing Taylor, who holds a bachelor’s degree in history and political science from the University of Southern Mississippi and a doctorate in educational leadership from Fayetteville State University.

“What stood out for him was his ability to come into Wake County, look at what we’re doing and move us forward,” said board Chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey.

Taylor will take over a district of over 190 schools and over 159,000 students in October. Interim Superintendent Randy Bridges will serve until then.

“This is a fantastic human being,” said board member Sam Hershey. “We are darned lucky.”

Taylor, a native of Mississippi, was appointed superintendent of education in his home state in November, but only briefly held the role, according to news reports.

He has a background in special education, and in his role with the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, he supervised federal programs, virtual public school, along with school nutrition and operations. As Bladen’s superintendent for nearly 10 years, he won several honors for his work in nutrition, physical education and health. He also earned the Friday Medal in 2017 from NC State University’s Friday Institute for Educational Innovation.

“The feedback we received from the community was invaluable in informing this decision,” Mahaffey said in a news release. “We have sought to ensure that our decision aligns with our community’s collective values and vision.”

District faces challenges

Moore was widely praised for her leadership during COVID-19, but she left a string of challenges for her successor, including pandemic-related learning loss and new culture-war debates over which books should be allowable in Wake classrooms.

Before Taylor’s hiring was announced, the board heard speakers so varied that one offered thanks for supporting for the LGBTQ community, calling it a matter of life or death for Wake students, while another accused the Wake board of violating obscenity laws and warned of criminal liability.

Mahaffey said the divide is striking school districts nationwide, and any candidate for superintendent would know that going in.

“The process has not been easy, and it shouldn’t be,” Mahaffey said. “We had challenging and robust conversations to get to this point.”

Earlier this year, Mississippi’s Republican-led Senate voted not to confirm Taylor as the state’s superintendent of education, drawing cries from some Democrats who said they rejected him at least partially because he is Black and had written about the state’s racist history, according to the Associated Press.

In Mississippi, the AP wrote, it is common for candidates to serve while senators are considering them for confirmation, and Taylor had been in office between January and March.

Asked by a reporter Tuesday whether she expected backlash considering Taylor is Black, knowing some parents object to what they consider “woke” ideology, Mahaffey said, “Regardless of who we selected, we would have folks who were excited and folks who were unexcited about it.”