Mississippi candidate for Little Rock superintendent says the job is a good fit

2nd hopeful on way

Jermall D. Wright
Jermall D. Wright

Jermall Wright, a finalist for superintendent in the Little Rock School District, said Monday that his research and visit have convinced him that he is a good fit for the 21,000-student system.

At the end of a late afternoon forum, an energized Wright laughingly told an audience of about 40 -- including School Board members -- to be sure to note his aptitude for the job on the evaluation forms that they were about to fill out about him.

Wright and George "Eric" Thomas of Atlanta, a former deputy superintendent/chief school turnaround officer for the Georgia Board of Education, are the two finalists for the job now held by Mike Poore, who will retire at the end of this school year.

Wright toured district schools, met with parents, students, business leaders and community leaders, including Little Rock Mayor Frank Scott Jr., before a dinner and interview with School Board members on Monday night. Thomas will follow a similar schedule on Wednesday.

Wright, 45, is currently the state-appointed, nearly three-year superintendent of the Mississippi Achievement School District, which is a combination of two adjoining low-achieving Yazoo City and Humphreys County school districts.

He said that his job excited him because it presented an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of rural Mississippi River Delta students.

The Little Rock district job would give him the opportunity to do that kind of work in a community that has human, fiscal, program and community partnership resources that will enable him to fulfill his life's purpose.

He said he looked forward to expanding the partnerships, such as the one with the City Year organization.

Wright also said he believed the Little Rock district has high quality core curriculum and intervention programs. He did question whether intervention programs were being fully used in terms of student time spent in the programs -- particularly at schools that are low achieving.

The district has the right things in place, he said, but people must be held accountable to implement them the way they should be.

"I want this community to know and understand and realize that I don't apply for random jobs," Wright said. "I look for opportunities that I think are a great fit for me," he said.

He talked about the public support that exists for the district and how motivated the Little Rock School Board is to never return to a level that requires state takeover.

"This is a perfect opportunity for me," he said. "And this is a perfect place to live," adding that he looks forward to a yard and garden and a relatively low cost of living.

"I'm never going back to Philly, Denver or D.C.," he quipped.

A native of Jacksonville, Fla., where he worked a decade as a teacher and principal, Wright was an elementary principal in Washington D.C. for four years, lead instructional superintendent in Denver for three years, assistant superintendent in Philadelphia for a year, and assistant superintendent in Birmingham, Ala., for two years before leading the Mississippi Achievement School District.

While in Mississippi -- in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic -- he led efforts that resulted in double-digit gains in the percentages of students who graduated from high schools in Humphreys County and Yazoo City and restored state accreditation to the two districts.

In a seven-page handout that included photos of himself, his siblings and his three children, Wright highlighted his different achievements. In each school system, he said, he led with "compelling vision, inspiration, high expectations, accountability [and] transparency -- not through fear or firing."

He told the audience that in Mississippi, he and his staff had "no magic pill" for improved student achievement but did give a lot of students disengaged from school or over-aged for their school grade levels a pathway to graduation.

"We gave those kids an opportunity to see that they still can be successful," he said. "One good thing about the pandemic, it gave us a lot of different access to technology tools to help them quickly get caught up while also supporting them with their proper grade level work."

Wright responded to audience questions placed on index cards and read aloud by School Board member Leigh Ann Wilson.

Asked how he defines diversity, equity and inclusion, Wright said that "I'm a firm believer in doing whatever we need to do to support the needs that our kids and our students have. Everybody may not get the same thing, but everybody will get what they need."

Wright said that families must feel a sense of belonging to a school or a district will lose enrollment.

"We have to create a culture within our schools so that every student feels they have a connection with somebody," he said.

He talked about his experience in competing with charter schools in Denver, which he did in part by taking employees on tours of the charter schools to see how they operated differently from the traditional public schools in that city.

He said he hasn't worked with a formal community school program -- such as what Little Rock has started -- but is supportive of the concept and did some similar support work for students and families while in Washington, D.C.

He was asked about the lack of bus drivers in the Little Rock district.

Wright said that in his Mississippi districts, the systems have reverted to the practice of having other district employees -- including teachers -- drive buses.

"I don't know if that will work here," he said to laughter.


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