Rowland challenges Rogers in lone Haywood School Board race

2018 Midterm Elections

Rowland challenges Rogers in lone Haywood School Board race

Jonathan Rowland (left) and Jimmy Rogers (right).

Haywood County’s high-performing schools slipped a few notches in state rankings this year — from 11th the last two years to 14th this year, of 115 districts statewide — and although that’s not cause for alarm, school board members are focused on the challenge of returning to the top 10 percent again this year.

Part of that challenge, however, has little to do with academics. Paramount among the myriad concerns administrators and board members face are those of student safety, brought to light by a seemingly unending series of school shootings since Colorado’s Columbine High School ushered in a new age of awareness back in 1999.

With a busy election calendar featuring more than a half-dozen important federal, state and local races, the lone school board race in Haywood County seems to be flying under the radar, despite its importance in shaping everything from workforce readiness to economic development for the next several decades. Now, two men with strikingly similar upbringings will ask voters to choose more of the same, or something new.

What first led you to run for the school board?

Jimmy Rogers: The main reason I got involved, of course my children were at Clyde Elementary and I was involved with the parent-teacher organization back then, but the main reason was that I was in Europe, and schools were talking about subjects and looking at stuff that I had not been exposed to, so I wanted to know if we were behind in our educational abilities in the United States or not. I wanted to get in there and say, “Well, can I make a difference?”

Related Items

Jonathan Rowland: I have a kindergartner and a second-grader at Clyde Elementary School. They obviously helped my decision a lot to get involved, but I’ve always been a civic-minded person including law enforcement, giving back to my community, hopefully using my skills and my knowledge to make a difference in schools, not just for my kids but for all kids, teachers and administrators.

Obviously school safety is more top-of-mind than we all wish it had to be. How does Haywood measure up?

Rowland: Jimmy’s been on for 18 years. It’s time for a change, just for safety, for instance. Since Sandy Hook, what has Haywood County done to make their campuses and their overall scheme safer? They’ve added some cameras, they’ve done the access control and added a resource officer. Is that enough? I don’t believe so. One of the board’s primary responsibilities is safety for schools and for kids. I feel we’re lacking in that department.

Rogers: If you look back, the very first school shooting that ever happened was in Pennsylvania in 1764. We want our kids to be as safe as they can be, and our school system has done a lot that people maybe aren’t aware of. We do have controlled access at all of our elementary schools. To keep our teachers safe and our students safe, we’re implementing those in any future expansions. It’s unfortunate when you say you may have to build a fence with barbed wire on top of it — it’s sad that our society has let us get that far. Now we have school resource officers in all high schools and in all middle schools. That’s a step. In elementary schools, we don’t have resource officers at this time. If more funding comes available, then we will probably place resource officers into elementary schools.

How much of a role does bullying, specifically online bullying, play in school safety decision-making?

Rogers: That’s a big topic that ties into a safety, because bullying, on Facebook and social media, that’s what’s caused a lot of our anger and a lot of people get upset because someone’s talking about them on social media or wherever, and that is upsetting to them. A lot of these kids, they’ve got some tough things to face in life nowadays. So what do we do to make better policies and procedures, to make sure that those kids have a safe environment? We just did it recently with one of our board policies about bullying.

Rowland: Online bullying is just as important to stop as on-campus bullying. Absolutely no child should be bullied! As a way to help alleviate this, I would encourage HCS’ tech department to develop a smart phone app and online tool for anonymously reporting threats and behavior concerns. A lot of the time kids will not report something because they don’t want to get involved. Having a way to report anonymously would encourage more kids to speak up.

We’ve seen an active role played by Haywood County’s various law enforcement agencies. What more can they do, or what more can the school system do to foster this partnership?

Rowland: As a law enforcement officer, I believe that there could be better communication between the schools and law enforcement. It seems like we have all these different committees on school safety however, a lot of the time nothing ever materializes. There should be the formation of one single safety steering committee which should be made up of key stakeholders throughout the county — sheriff, police chiefs, DSS, emergency management, EMS, county commissioners, BOE, teachers and administration, etc. This group should be setting the policy and procedures going forward. Also, law enforcement agency heads should be presenting and meeting with the board and superintendent on at least a quarterly schedule. BOE members should go out and observe the lockdowns and drills being performed. There is always room for improvement and being out there watching these drills and hearing the teachers and students’ feedback could provide good angles for improving.

Rogers: Our relationship with law enforcement in Haywood County — Waynesville Clyde, Canton, Maggie, all the local PD’s and the sheriff’s office — has been great. They continue to find ways to help us as teachers and staff. When our teachers have staff development days, some of these issues have been brought up, and [law enforcement] teaches them — how do you identify a child that’s got an anger issue? Or a parent? They’re being trained constantly on that and a lot of people don’t realize that.

Of course, there’s been talk — not just in North Carolina — about arming teachers. Is that a good idea?

Rogers: I don’t believe we really have a lot of our staff that wants to carry a weapon. They shouldn’t have to. They’ve got so many job duties thrown on them now, and now you want to give them a gun, too? I don’t agree with that. I don’t think we should have to put that much more on the teachers.

Rowland: I would not want to place the responsibility of carrying and securing a firearm on top of their already demanding jobs. Police are our subject matter experts and they are the ones we should be placing in our schools to protect our children. I believe our attention should be fighting to get school resource officers in every school across our county. A resource officer provides so much more than just safety, such as building rapport with kids and groups. Most of the time, these officers are the only close law enforcement connections some students will ever have in their life. An SRO is the very basics of building trust, respect and support between law enforcement and our youth.

Earlier this year a proposal was floated that would allow armed volunteers — qualified, experienced volunteers with law enforcement or military background — to patrol schools. What’s the status of that?

Rogers: I have a lot of veterans come up to me and say, “Hey Jimmy, we’ll go sit in the school for several hours today. We’ll help keep the school safe.” It’s not off the table, it’s something that still could happen. A lot of this stuff is still in the planning stages. It’s a continual target that we’re looking at — change it, make it better.

Rowland: Armed volunteers is something that I don’t think we should be pursuing. As I mentioned, there is so much more to a SRO than just being there with a gun. I can name one of a couple different incidents where a student had enough trust and faith in talking with their SRO that they deterred a potential incident from happening.

Retaining experienced teachers is something Haywood’s struggled with of late. How do we attract and retain the people responsible for Haywood’s stellar academic performance?

Rowland: I didn’t realize how much turnover is an issue in Haywood County schools. Just since 2014, 129 teachers have left Haywood County public schools. These are people that have left to go to neighboring districts, to charter schools, to private schools. If you think about that, not only is it just a huge problem overall, but that’s a huge budgetary issue. You’ve got money tied into every one of those people that you’re bringing on and then in turn losing. You look at it and you’ve got to think, “Is it a monetary thing?” I’m sure that plays a part. I think there’s other things that go along with it. We’re not thinking outside the box to retain those teachers. For example, Haywood County government has the wellness center. Their employees can go to it during the day, they’re not charged to see a doctor. That’s already in place, I would think we could venture together and the teachers and administrators utilize that. It’s ideas such as that when I say “thinking outside the box.”

Rogers: The biggest asset in Haywood County Schools is the people that we have. They may be underpaid, but they’re dedicated because they’re happy to go to work every day. They feel good about their job every day. Our teachers are great. I think they’re some of the best in the state. I do travel a lot for business, a lot of times when I’m traveling in North Carolina I might just stop in and see how they do things. How do you retain teachers? How does this work for you? We have a lot of collaboration with other agencies in our county, you know the Haywood County Schools Foundation — they help the teachers. We have a mentor for new teachers. We’re a high-performing school district. A lot of teachers will look at that and say, “Hey, they are doing good. I’d like to go there and work.”

Meet the candidates

Jonathan Rowland

Jonathan Rowland, 38, studied art at Montreat College after graduating from Pisgah High School in 1999, but now finds himself as the information technology and security director at Champion Credit Union. He’s also served as a reserve Canton police officer for 12 years and said that his recent participation in the Haywood Chamber’s leadership program carried “a little clout” in the decision to make his first-ever run for elected office.

Jimmy Rogers

Jimmy Rogers, 59, is a 1977 graduate of Pisgah High School; after studying at Campbell College and then Appalachian State, where he majored in business and finance, Rogers went to work for a local farm equipment sales and service business started by his father and grandfather in 1952. Rogers has served on the board for 18 years and has never sought any other elected office.

Tags: