NAACP demands due process for Carrboro principal put on leave after student walkout
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- NAACP urges district to reinstate Carrboro principal and provide due process
- Principal Helena Thomas was placed on leave after student walkout and protests
- District reviews handling of leave amid calls for transparency and fair process
The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school system’s decision to put a principal on paid leave ahead of graduation Saturday has hurt her professional and personal reputation without evidence or due process, the local NAACP said Wednesday.
Principal Helena Thomas was put on paid administrative leave June 2, just a few days after Carrboro High School students led a walkout along with parents to protest what they and an anonymous faculty letter said was a toxic school culture created during Thomas’ two-year tenure.
The NAACP is demanding Thomas be reinstated immediately and allowed to attend graduation. It is also asking the district to grant her due process, by providing evidence of what she did wrong that led to her administrative leave and to let her know how and when to appeal the decision.
“We are reaching out directly in the hopes of achieving a fair solution for Dr. Helena Thomas. We believe that the district office has unjustly responded to community concerns at Carrboro High School at her expense,” Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP President Herman Foushee said. “As a result, she has had to endure considerable harm to her professional and personal reputation.”
Thomas was hired in August 2023 and given a new, four-year contract in April. The Chapel Hill-Carrboro school board approved her contract in May, Foushee said.
Parents, students and some faculty at the school started raising concerns last month about Thomas’ leadership in school board meetings and at the walkout, when the students spoke for an hour to Superintendent Nyah Hamlett, who is leaving the district.
The letter from Carrboro faculty and staff, and remarks made by students at the walkout, accused Thomas of harming staff morale and increasing turnover among teachers, who fear speaking out due to harassment, bullying and retaliation. It also cited concerns about school safety, student support, a lack of communication, and inconsistent practices and policy violations.
Questions about district process
On May 30, district officials met with Thomas to propose possible options to support her and respond to the student walkout, NAACP education committee leader Sherika Hill said. When she returned to school June 2, she got a letter that said she was on leave, Hill said.
“The district office was very surprised that this woman was not going to sit down and sit back and let the rumor mill continue,” Hill said. “She wanted to continue to finish her school year, because she’s worked hard.”
The NAACP wants to know why “the district office has been silent to public attacks against Dr. Thomas’ competency, professionalism, and her leadership, given their confidence in her performance” that led to the new contract, Foushee said.
“We are disappointed by this stance, which allows rumors and hearsay to intensify,” he said, before delivering a letter outlining the group’s grievances to incoming Superintendent Rodney Trice. The NAACP wants to make sure the district “does not act rashly in taking any disciplinary action,” as suggested by parents and students who have protested her tenure, he added.
The NAACP is not trying to silence those students and parents who walked out and protested, Hill clarified.
“Because there was a silence on behalf of the administrative office and the school board, the parents organized, as they should have, and they motivated their children to speak out for advocacy, and that’s what we want today.”
She and other speakers encouraged more people to get involved, speak at meetings and learn more about the NAACP’s work. Young people, especially, should ask questions, organize and help dispel rumors, they said.
The NAACP wants to also educate the district office in how to handle future complaints and misinformation, Hill said.
That “doesn’t hurt them necessarily, but ruins the career of a woman who has worked very hard, and I think all of us know what it means to walk around with Ph.D.s and other acronyms at the end of our names, because it doesn’t come [easily],” she said.
Talks happening, and a review possible
School board Chair George Griffin told The News & Observer on Tuesday that the way this situation was handled should be examined.
“When this is all resolved, we would definitely want to sit down and say, very seriously, what can we learn from this and what could we have done differently, if anything, because when it gets to a point like this, it’s not because somebody thought this was a good way for things to be handled,” Griffin said.
District staff is reaching out to parents and students to get more information, which will take time, spokesman Andy Jenks said.
The Dispute Settlement Center in Carrboro is also setting up conversations with staff and students, which they had requested, he said, including voluntary and one-on-one staff meetings, student group meetings, and an open session at the school for students.
Griffin noted that temporary leave is not uncommon, and is meant “to protect the employee as much as find out what’s going on.”
“This is an incredibly difficult thing for a school principal who already has a difficult job. We recognize that, and our heart goes out to her,” Griffin said. “We [also] realize it involves students, it involves teachers, it involves parents.”
School board member Vickie Feaster Fornville, who attended the NAACP rally Wednesday, said the district “can always do better.”
“We strive to do better, so I don’t think we’re perfect, but I don’t think we’re all wrong in anything.,” she said. “I think it’s somewhere between wrong and right, and you’re trying to do the best that you can.”
This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 2:17 PM.
