Building a Desperately needed new Canton Middle School

Nearing 100 years old, the Canton Middle School building is the oldest and most deteriorated school structure in Haywood County. This relic of the past is likely the most deteriorated school building in North Carolina. All of the building’s infrastructure — plumbing, electrical systems, flooring, and ceilings — poses a compliance nightmare under the Americans with Disabilities Act. It is in desperate need of replacement for the safety of our children and grandchildren.

The estimated cost to replace the Canton Middle School building is approximately $70 million, which could be covered by a state Public School Capital Fund Grant, requiring a county match of 15%, or roughly $ 10.5 million.

Profits from the North Carolina Education Lottery fund the Public-School Capital Fund grants. In fiscal year 2024, the lottery reached a record $5.4 billion in sales, with $1.09 billion allocated for public schools specifically for building maintenance, upgrades, repairs, and, when necessary, replacements.

The North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) criteria for Lottery-funded projects specify that proceeds must be allocated for “public school buildings,” which they define as facilities serving “individual schools” used for “instructional and related purposes.” DPI’s allowable projects criteria state that it only “includes purchase of land for schools, design for schools, construction of new school buildings, renovations, enlargements, or repairs to existing school buildings.”

However, an Asheville News 13 investigation found that much of this Lottery money was being spent on various other school projects unrelated to the purpose and mandate of the Public-School Capital Fund Grant.

The investigation also revealed that North Carolina’s western mountain counties, including Haywood County, were being excluded from the hundreds of millions of dollars in lottery grants received by other central and eastern counties, which were used to build large, extravagant, and questionably necessary new schools in the politically influential counties of central and east North Carolina.

North Carolina has allocated tens of millions of dollars in grant funding for school improvements in those counties. Still, despite multiple attempts over several years to secure a Public-School Capital Fund Grant to replace the Canton Middle School building, those applications have consistently been denied, even though Canton Middle School’s building is the oldest, most deteriorated, and unsafe school structure in Haywood County, and possibly in North Carolina.

In August 2023, a North Carolina Education Lottery investigation revealed that state legislators had been decreasing the percentage of the Public-School Capital Fund Grant money allocated to education over the years. It was found that state legislators were diverting a significant portion to unauthorized initiatives in an inappropriate manner. As a result of the investigation’s findings, Asheville’s News 13 learned that legislators later approved hundreds of millions in additional lottery funds to help districts struggling with aging schools.

Investigating how North Carolina’s school system was spending the Public-School Capital Fund Grant money, Asheville’s News 13 found that many school districts were using millions of lottery dollars for athletic repair projects, including synthetic turf, stadium lighting, bleacher upgrades, tennis courts, and even luxury swimming pools, none of which is supposed to be allowed under DPI policy.

For example, Buncombe County’s School Board unanimously voted to allocate $875,000 from Education Lottery funds for a new sports stadium and baseball field lights at the AC Reynolds High School.

Not only was the School Board failing to follow DPI policy, but all lottery project requests also required approval from a school district’s County Board of Commissioners, which means that the County Commissioners were complicit in allowing these funds to be improperly spent.

Buncombe County received over $29 million in Lottery funds for various repair projects unrelated to school buildings. Asheville’s News 13 found that a large portion of that $29 million was allocated to specific athletic-related projects, such as a new multi-million-dollar indoor swimming pool at TC Roberson High School. Other sports-related expenses include $600,000 for stadium turf replacement, also at TC Roberson High School.

Other records of Public-School Capital Fund Grant money spending on athletic-related initiatives showed that $250,000 was approved for Madison County schools to build weight and exercise facilities for students.

In Haywood County, the Lottery grant money received was allocated by the county school leadership to fund several synthetic turf projects, including two that cost over $1 million. “We don’t have educational needs that are suffering,” said Dr. Bill Nolte, who was the Haywood County Schools superintendent at the time the money was received, totally ignoring the critical need to replace the Canton Middle School building.

DPI records also show that Haywood County received over $8 million in Lottery funds for school repairs, but state records indicate that district school leaders chose to allocate most of the funds to athletic and sports-related projects.

The records from Asheville’s News 13 investigation show that over $1 million of Lottery funds were spent on new gym floors and new lighting for Pisgah and Tuscola High Schools' athletic fields. DPI records also indicate that approximately $3.4 million was spent by Haywood administrators on new bleachers and synthetic turf at those two high schools.

“They’re our two high schools that are members of the NCHSAA,” said Bill Nolte, Schools superintendent at the time. “So, we want every team; we have dozens of teams, the band marches on the turf, soccer plays on the turf.” Rebecca Frazier, who has children in the school district, disputed Nolte’s statement and said the band her child played in wasn’t allowed to practice on the turf.

Haywood County's leadership has decided to allocate the Public-School Capital Fund Grant money to sports and athletic repair projects rather than building repairs and replacements. According to these elected county officials, investing millions in turf was the right decision in a school district where there is strong pride in sports. This is despite the county’s need for over $65 million in school building replacements and repairs.

So, the question that needs to be asked of our elected county School Board Officers, County Commissioners, and our state Representative is: Why are you, whom we elected to promote our best interests, allowing this to happen? Why are other counties receiving tens of millions of dollars for new, extravagant school buildings and sports-related projects, while the Canton Middle School building deteriorates, putting our children at serious risk in that building? When will you start becoming the leaders we elected you to be and begin to use common sense when making school-related decisions? When will you start taking the necessary steps to secure the funds we need to replace the Canton Middle School Building?

These are questions that every resident of Canton and, for that matter, Haywood County needs to press our elected officials to answer. We should not wait until our children are injured or face health problems because of the deteriorating condition of the Canton Middle School building.

Please consider the children who must spend their days in that crumbling building. Speak out today and every day until our county elected officials replace that building. If those we have elected to serve the will of their constituents cannot or will not address our critical needs, then they must be told that we will vote to replace them in their next election.

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