The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-05-03
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
CASE,
Supt. Coles Appeal Heard
Before State Board of Edu-
cation Last NIGHT.

Last night the State Board OF Eduoa-
tion heard the appeal from Cumberland
county in the case Of County superin-
tendent Of Schools S. d. Cole, who was
dismissed from office by his County
Board Of Education, being by them de-
clared guilty of various and sundry
charges Of neglect or failure to perform
certain duties. The appeal was heard in
the executive office
The charges We're first brought in Jan
uary, and the officers declared on the
18th Of that month Superintendent Cole
then appealed to the State Board. With
out waiting for the result Of that appeal
! the county board had hearing on the
matter At that hearing counsel for su-
/ perintendent Cole ente4 ~ a demurrer.
1 The Stat Board remanded the case back
+ to the County Board and at the succeed
4 ing hearing Superintendent Cole gave in
! his evidence in his own behalf.
! Mr.. D. r. Oates, Of Fayetteville, ap-
/ peared last night as counsel for Mr.. ole,
who was also present before the State
+ Board The other side was not represent
4 ed at all at the hearing.
The evidence taken at the hearing be-
fore the County Board was all read by
State Superintendent Joyner 1t was
quite voluminous. Besides that there was
a letter from Mr. S. II. Strange, chair
man Of the County Board, which gave
con siderable testimony as to superintend-
ent Coles witnesses for office. Mr.. Oates
requested that this letter be not admitted
as evidence, for the reason that Mr..
]
testify at the hearing, but had not done
so The Governor told Mr.. Oates that the
board would not consider the contents of
the letter as evidence.
The first change was failure to record
and tabulate the school census figures,
as directed by the County Board This
was not his duty, Mr. Oates said The
law only requires Of superintendent that
they send not blanks for the census re-
ports This he did, as shown by the evil
dence, uncontradicted
Charge No. 2 was that he failed to noti-
fy Pierce's Mill School Committeeman of
a new district formed in that township.
This Mr.. Oates answered by saying that
there was no evidence to show that he
had not done his duty in that respect;
but on the contrary he testified that
from his best impression he mailed the
letters or gave them to the Janitor of the
court house, and that he was positive that
he wrote the letters.
The third charge, that he failed to
make written report, as directed upon
the condition Of all the school houses in
the county, Mr. Oates characterized as re-
diculous, because he was notified to make
this report only twelve days before the
report was due. There are 15e school
houses in the counties, and it would be
utterly impossible to get around i'll any
thing like that time. AS it was, ne sue
ceeded in visiting in the time he mad an
average Of three and half school houses
a day. This order, Mr.. Oates considered.
was given Superintendent Cole, not that
he might carry it out, but that the board
might catch him.
Charge four was that he had collected
fees for examinations and had not turned
them over to the board In the first
place, Mr.. Oates said the law was very
lose on this point, it did not state when
these fees should be paid. Moreover
there was considerable salary due the
Superintendent at the time, and if he did
use that money, and there was no evil
denee that he had used it, he had right
to do, as the amount owing him would
very much more than cover what he had
in his possession of the examination fees.
The fifth charge Mr.. Oates asked the
board to strike out on account of its gen
eral nature. It merely charged general
incompetence. 1t was urged that all evil
dence on this subject be struck out.
Mr.. Oates declared that If Superintend-
ent Cole was shown to be incompetent on
teh evidence then the State Board should
turn out every member of the County
Board for incompetency, because that evil
dence adduced to show Superintendent
Coles unfitness did most surely show the
complete incompetency Of the members
of the County Board without a word of
complaint until the very last It was
strange that nothing was found against
him in all that time.
After Mr.. Oates had been heard the
board went into executive session for
few minutes, and little later it was
stated that the decision would be an
nounced today
The County Board Of Cumberland is
composed of Messrs. S. H. Strange chair
man; J. H. Smith and H. H. Bolton.
J. H. Smith was a candidate for Regis
ter of Deeds on the skeleton ticket, after
having been defeated in the Democratic
convention. This skeleton ticket was
filled out by the Republican convention.
The new board as named by the last
Legislature consists of Messrs. J. A.
Oates, J. n. Curry and J, w. Hall.