North Carolina’s largest school district has hired a longtime local and statewide education administrator to become its next superintendent.
The Wake County Board of Education voted 8-1 on Tuesday for Robert Taylor to begin serving in the role on Oct. 1, news outlets reported.
Taylor was hired last year as state education superintendent in his home state of Mississippi, but his time was cut short after the state Senate voted against his confirmation in March.
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Taylor succeeds Catty Moore, who retired as Wake superintendent after a five-year tenure leading a district with close to 200 schools, over 159,000 students and an annual budget of more than $2 billion.
Taylor’s 30-year education career includes stints as Bladen County Schools superintendent and as North Carolina’s deputy state superintendent of public instruction in 2021 and 2022.
Robert Taylor will serve on the North Carolina Wake County Board of Education starting October.
Taylor, who will earn a base salary of roughly $327,000, stood out for his knowledge of North Carolina and his vision of where the Wake schools need to go, board Chairwoman Lindsay Mahaffey said.
The board received applications from 28 candidates, from which several were interviewed.
“I have the utmost confidence that he will do an outstanding job,” board member Sam Hershey said. “This is a fantastic human being, this is an outstanding educator and leader and we are so darn lucky.”
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Taylor had been working as Mississippi’s superintendent since January but he stepped down after the Republican-controlled Senate voted against him. He had been the unanimous choice of the state’s education board members.
Some Black Democrats said the rejection was at least partly because Taylor is Black and wrote years ago about the state’s racist history. One Republican who voted against his confirmation said he wanted a superintendent who had a better resume on improving low-performing schools.
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In a news release Tuesday, Taylor said the Wake school system “stands at the forefront of innovative education, and I welcome the opportunity to provide the leadership that continues this work provided by all of its high-quality educators.”
The Wake County Public School System, which ranks among the nation’s largest districts by enrollment, will continue to be led by an interim superintendent until Taylor’s formal arrival.
