School board chair airs ‘dirty laundry,’ says Wake is breaking public trust
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Board chair Heagarty accuses district staff of giving inaccurate information.
- Parent Bridgers alleges delayed reports and missing police records in assault claim.
- Alumni warn Ligon renovation may demolish historic building; chair calls for preservation.
A parent’s persistent claim that his child’s abuse was ignored drew an angry outburst from Wake County school board chair Chris Heagarty, who accused district staff of providing information that “was not accurate or true.”
Richard Bridgers has spoken at Wake County school board meetings since March to charge that the district failed to properly handle allegations that a substitute teacher assaulted his son. The handling of the case along with other issues caused Heagarty to publicly criticize the staff in North Carolina’s largest school district.
“It can often be easy to be a cheerleader, to see the good, to talk about the good, to stand up to the criticism, to refute the critics,” Heagarty said at the end of Tuesday’s board meeting. “But I’ve got to be honest. Sometimes it’s getting harder and harder to do that when in this role I am presented information that breaks public trust.”
After the meeting, Heagarty said he was referring to several things, including the Bridgers case, renovation plans at Ligon Middle School and conflicting information about holding board meetings in the community.
Heagarty, an attorney, is Wake’s longest-serving school board member. He was initially appointed in 2018 and will end his term as board chair in December.
The school district did not immediately respond to The News & Observer’s request for comment on Heagarty’s charge that staff has presented inaccurate information to the board.
Did school wait 37 days to report to police?
Bridgers has been a regular fixture at board meetings since he says a substitute teacher at South Lakes Elementary School in Fuquay-Varina grabbed his son’s shoulder with her nails on Feb. 28 to get him to sit down in class. While it didn’t hurt the second-grader, Bridgers said it made his son feel uncomfortable.
Bridgers said he mentioned the alleged assault that same day to David Kent, the school’s assistant principal. Bridgers said he also mentioned it the following school day, on March 3, to Teresa James, who was on her first day as the school’s principal.
According to an email to Bridgers from a school district investigator, James said she and Kent spoke with the school resource officer about the incident on March 3.
But according to a Fuquay-Varina Police Department report, Sgt. Brett Kain said he couldn’t find any computer records from March 1 to March 5 of the incident being reported. Kain also couldn’t find any bodycam or dashcam footage of South Lakes from the school resource officer on March 3.
Kain said the SRO couldn’t find any notifications from the school administration on his department-issued phone or work email.
Kain then contacted James, who said she had told the SRO about it in person. But Kain said the SRO didn’t recall being notified by the principal.
A district email shows that James filed documentation with Fuquay-Varina police on April 9 — 37 days after James said she had told the SRO. The documentation came after Bridgers first made his case public at the March 4 school board meeting and two days before the district’s head of security came to South Lakes to interview James.
At James’ request, South Lakes’ PTA removed a Facebook post from Bridgers about the assault allegations.
Kent referred questions from The N&O to the district’s communications office. James did not respond to an email from The N&O requesting comment.
Substitute no longer works for Wake
According to a police report, Kent said the substitute teacher denied making physical contact with the student. The assistant principal also said the teacher assistant in the classroom said she didn’t witness any physical contact.
Police investigated, but insufficient evidence was found to determine an assault took place, according to a town spokesperson.
The substitute teacher is no longer employed by Wake, according to an email the district sent to Bridgers. Wake says her employment ended April 15.
Bridgers charges that delayed reporting by the school stalled the police investigation.
“A cover-up is defined as an attempt to prevent people from discovering the truth about a serious mistake or crime or as a concerted effort to keep an illegal or unethical or situation from being made public,” Bridgers said at Tuesday’s board meeting. “There’s simply no other way to look at the situation.”
Bridgers said Wake should have done more given incidents such as a teacher who was convicting of assaulting two special-education students at East Wake High School.
School officials did not respond to The N&O’s request for comment about Bridgers’ allegations. But Heagarty brought them up at the board meeting, much to Bridgers’ appreciation.
“When Mr. Bridgers comes in here time and time and brings these concerns, documents what he has, and we’re given assurances that ‘no, no that’s not entirely accurate, that’s not the way it is,’” Heagarty said. “And yet he continues to come back and bring this information. It’s hard to reconcile that.”
What is Wake doing to Ligon Middle School?
Also on Tuesday, two alumni from John W. Ligon High School raised concerns about what will happen to the historic campus off Lenoir Street in Raleigh. Ligon opened in 1953 as a segregated Black high school. It was desegregated in 1971 and turned into a junior high school, now called a middle school.
Wake says no decision has been made yet on the design plans when the $141 million renovation projects starts in 2027. But alumni said they’re hearing the plan is to tear down the historic main building and relocate the students to a new building that will be built down the hill from the current location.
“My interest tonight is the preservation and history of our beloved John W. Ligon High School,” said Carol Gartrell, who attended the school. “I know that there have been plans in the making, although we have been told the opposite.”
Heagarty sided with the alumni, saying Wake has an obligation to honor the history of that former high school.
“We must at the very least go to the same efforts of historical preservation for that school that we have for other high schools in our district,” Heagarty said. “To do anything else is unfair, unequitable, and it simply perpetuates what we’ve been guilty of in the past.”
Board chair: ‘We need to do better’
The school board voted Tuesday to hold an upcoming community engagement meeting outside of the district’s headquarters in Cary. Heagarty complained that staff had given the board conflicting information whether it was logistically possible to meet off-site.
All these issues led Heagarty to give a four-minute speech at the end of Tuesday’s board meeting that was highly critical of district staff. Heagary said he didn’t “want to air a lot of dirty laundry in the public,” but felt compelled to say it’s left a “bad taste in my mouth” accepting the blame for sharing information from staff that’s not been accurate.
“When the public comes to us with a concern and we bring that concern to staff and we are given assurances that ‘oh what you’re hearing is not accurate or that is not the case or oh no there is no plan that we would do this or do that’ and then to find out that’s not the case, that just makes it really hard to continue to be a spokesperson and serve as a defender of the district,” Heagarty said.
Heagarty said it feels “like I’m being handled” by staff when he’s told there’s no plan to do something only to find out later that there might not have been a plan yet. Heagarty said he feels like staff is “ambushing us in public” when it gives the board information that changes about what they can and cannot do.
“Maybe I misunderstand the role of the board members and what we should expect from staff in terms of communications,” Heagarty said. “And if so, I’ll admit to that. I’ve sat up here and I’ve accepted responsibility before. But if that’s not the case, I think we need to do better.”
This story was originally published October 10, 2025 at 9:56 AM with the headline "School board chair airs ‘dirty laundry,’ says Wake is breaking public trust."
