‘We’re hitting the reset button’; Alamance-Burlington School System announces new superintendent

BURLINGTON, N.C. (WGHP) — A Piedmont-Triad school district has a new head honcho after being plagued with issues for the previous school year.

Alamance-Burlington School Systems announced the new hire at a special meeting on Monday.

After returning from a closed session to discuss personnel matters, the ABBOE announced that they had selected Aaron Fleming to be the new superintendent of the school district, effective September 17. Fleming worked as the superintendent of Harnett County schools for seven and a half years.

Board member Donna Westbrook opted not to vote in Fleming, stating her belief that the superintendent should have prior experience as a principal, which she says Fleming lacked, however, she stated even though she did not vote for his appointment, she would support him and believed he would put students, educators and families first in Alamance County.

“Today we’re hitting the reset button,” board member Ryan Bowden said, asking the community to hit the same reset button along with them. “Let’s move forward.”

“I know there’s a lot of work waiting here at ABSS,” he said, thanking the interim superintendent for getting the work started during his time. “I’m ready to work.”

Background

Dain Butler, the previous superintendent, left the position in March, amid a year of huge budgetary issues for the district.

He received a severance payment of $102,038 minus taxes and deductions, paid out from the district’s local unrestricted fund balance.

Butler’s removal came as ABSS contended with financial and legal troubles throughout the 2023-2024 school year. A significant mold problem erupted last summer and cost the district thousands , and major repairs are needed at older schools . The district enacted a hiring freeze due to the budget crisis , and had to shutter summer programs.

Alamance County ultimately set a budget that gave them millions less than they asked for in the upcoming year.

Within about a week, ABSS twice had to appoint a new interim chief financial officer. ABSS announced on Feb. 19 that the district would no longer employ CFO Kim McVey per the superintendent. ABSS appointed Deputy Superintendent Lowell Rogers as the interim CFO .

“In ABSS the finance officer serves at the pleasure of the superintendent and the superintendent made a decision yesterday [Feb. 18] as of 5 o’clock to part ways and we are moving forward now, as you know we’ve had some budget challenges and we’re gonna work through that now and find some solutions as we work towards the end of our fiscal year,” ABSS spokesperson Les Atkins said at the time.

Then, on Feb. 20, ABSS confirmed that Rogers was suspended with pay after he was charged with misdemeanor failure to report alleged child abuse to law enforcement .

North Carolina SBI received a request from Burlington police on Dec. 21, 2023, to investigate an accusation of failure to report involving an incident that took place at Eastlawn Elementary School.

Neither ABSS nor SBI have confirmed the specific incident linked to Rogers’ charge. Near that date, on Dec. 8, 2023, Burlington police opened an investigation into an alleged child sex crime involving an elementary school student at Eastlawn Elementary School . Daniel Stephen McInnis, 43, of Burlington, was charged with one count of felony statutory sex offense.

On Feb. 23, the board appointed School Systems Accounts Manager Melinda Anderson as interim finance officer.

Lawmakers have also expressed concern with how ABSS handled mitigating the widespread mold issues. The Board of Education is also being sued over a middle school teacher’s indecent liberties with several young students.

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