Thread by @nckhui

#wcpss #ncpol #nced #wakepol (Long thread incoming) Wake County school board member Karen Carter says her critics are unfairly smearing her new employer in their efforts to get back at her politically.

Carter announced earlier this month on her personal Facebook account that

after she leaves office she’ll start a new job in the social work field for the ARC of North Carolina. Soon afterward, her critics went on social media to try to link Carter’s new job to a $518,700 contract the school board had approved in Aug. 2021 with the ARC of the Triangle.

Carter says there’s no connection between he new job and the contract, pointing to how it’s 2 different ARC groups with separate 501Cs & separate boards. The contract to provide former Wake students with transitional adult skills expired at the end of last school year.

“I can get that they’re constantly smearing me, but I don’t know why you’d want paint a non-profit in an untruthful manner,” Carter said in an interview. “They’re making a connection that’s not there. They’re trying to damage 2 separate non-profits.”

Carter had to resign her job as a special ed instructional assistant in Wake when she joined the school board. Carter said she applied to multiple organizations with her new job as a social work case manager fitting into her prior work as a therapeutic foster care social worker.

Carter had been elected in 2020 with the endorsement of the Wake County Republican Party. But her positions on issues such as continuing the mask mandate soured some of her former supporters.

The last straw may have been when Carter endorsed Tyler Swanson to replace her instead

of Michele Morrow. Carter says the anonymous social media accounts that have gone after her are run by former campaign volunteers.

“I know who the fake accounts are with,” Carter said. “They’re the folks who have come after me repeatedly when there isn’t a story."