Superintendent Q&A: Listening, Learning, Connecting Dr. Sharon Contreras, Superintendent of Guilford County Schools
When Dr. Sharon Contreras stepped into the superintendency at North Carolina’s Guilford County Schools in 2016, she hit the ground running. Traveling more than 500 miles to visit every school in a 72,000-student district, she conducted a listening and learning tour so extensive that she ultimately observed over 1,000 classrooms and met with nearly 100 community groups. As the first African American Latina to be Guilford’s superintendent, Contreras is a trailblazer. She’s thoughtful and strong, unafraid to speak up for the kids and families she serves. Her strength in building community connections has garnered her widespread recognition, including the NAACP Community Service and Freedom Awards. She’s also been a member of Chiefs for Change since 2018. We had the chance to speak with Dr. Contreras about how she builds lasting community partnerships, connects with every student, and communicates her district’s successes.
How did you get to know the needs of such a large community? The goal of that initial listening and learning tour was to form and shape the priorities for our new strategic plan. Stakeholders were very open and transparent. They told me what they felt we did right, what we should improve upon, and simply gave me advice about how I could be successful. When I got here, there were 192 goals in the strategic plan—we got that down to six, so that the goals were actually achievable. I also established a superintendent’s transition team, made up of 100 educators, parents, business leaders, community members, and a national expert. They helped me make sense of all of the data I was collecting—I didn’t just sit there and drink punch and eat cookies with stakeholders. We actually had members of the transition team analyzing the information we were receiving, much of which was anecdotal, yet still very important. We spent months analyzing the data before we presented it to the community.
How do you maintain the relationships you built? School districts cannot do this work alone. The listening and learning tour helped me get to know community members instead of simply being a spectator or having them be spectators of the district. I was able to really develop and nurture SPRING 2020
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