DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT
READY TO SERVE AND LEAD Former DPS leader returns to district as deputy superintendent on a mission
r. Nicholas King is mission-driven as Durham Public School’s new deputy superintendent. On Oct. 13, he returned to Durham Public Schools to serve as the chief academic advisor for the district. In this role, he is ultimately responsible for the work being done to ensure student success. He had previously served as a teacher at Durham High (now Durham School of the Arts) and Riverside High schools, and was the first principal to open the Josephine D. Clement Early College. He has also served as principal at Glenn Elementary School. King says his mission is to bring back the energy he was gifted as a young student who had potential but lacked motivation. “I’m trying to be the person that I needed when I was a kid. I would have been quite satisfied to go along to get along. But there were educators who saw something in me and basically told me I wasn’t doing what I could do and held me to a higher expectation. They pushed me along and supported me and gave me the notion that I was worthy,” says King. As a result, he matriculated to college with the express intention of becoming an educator. “I wanted to be in a place where I could really help kids,” he says. The universe responded accordingly. King was part of the second cohort of North Carolina
14 SPARK INSIDER
Teaching Fellows, and began his career in CharlotteMecklenburg Schools at Independence High School, but transitioned to Durham High School during the winter break. He taught social studies there for two years and then at Riverside High for a year. His first principalship was in a Title I school where up to 95 percent of students qualified for free and reduced lunch. “It creates real challenges for a school because while those students certainly come to school as capable as anyone else, they also come to schools with significant challenges and significant needs that have to be met. That’s an enormous challenge for principals,” says King. When he served as principal at Glenn, King says he and his teachers and staff built a program of support for their students and set high expectations for students and professionals. The achievement gains over four years, he says, were incredible. The students benefited academically, socially, and emotionally with an appropriate amount of support and engagement from the community. A self-professed “worker bee,” he says he was energized as an educator with DPS. He remembered Durham and its city-county school systems when he started college at North Carolina Central University. When he returned as a teacher, the 1992 merger had just taken place. Now, 30 years later, the district is undergoing a student reassignment initiative that will serve all students by increasing and promoting access, equity, and diversity among the academic programs.
