A Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Public Schools contracted custodian has been arrested on 31 charges, 17 of which are for indecent exposure.

CHARLES EDWARD HOLLAND

Charles Edward Holland, age 24, was arrested on May 17 by the Forsyth County Sheriff’s Office and was charged with 17 felony counts of indecent exposure, and 14 felony counts of indecent liberties with a student.

The charges stem from an alleged incident on Aug. 15, 2021, in which Holland exposed himself to a 12-year-old student at Lewisville Middle School.

Per warrant documents, the additional charges against Holland indicate he also exposed himself to 17 other students and that he had sexually abused 14 of those students.

This website reported last year on Holland’s initial arrest involving the alleged incident on Aug. 15, 2021.

According to the Winston-Salem/Forsyth schools (WSF), Holland was “immediately removed from campus” after the 2021 incident and had been permanently barred from working as a contractor.

Holland was employed with the Supreme Maintenance Organization (SMO), located in Greensboro. According to multiple media reports, the company admitted it did not do a proper criminal background check on Holland.

Has the company done a background check, they would have easily found that Holland had been charged in 2016 with felony indecent exposure on two separate occasions in Mecklenburg County. He was given probation and a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to consolidated charges of two misdemeanor counts of indecent liberties.

“This is unacceptable. We put our faith in an organization that to date has provided us with good service. Their employees provide a valuable service to our schools by serving as custodians,” said WSF Superintendent Tricia McManus in a statement. “A gap in SMO’s procedures, however, put an individual in a position that was not safe for students. I will not tolerate that.”

“I have informed SMO that an immediate audit of all other employees must happen now. They must also make immediate changes to their internal processes so this never happens again,” said McManus. “If they do not, we will pursue termination of their contract for services. Any individuals that do not meet our standards will be relieved of their duties in our facilities, immediately.”

SMO has around 100 contractors and McManus has ordered her staff to conduct full background checks on all of them. Despite McManus’ statement and ordering of background checks, WSF is apparently still actively using SMO, but just not at the Lewisville Middle School location.