J. Alvin Wilbanks signs 2-year contract worth over $800k to remain Gwinnett schools superintendent (Atlanta: employment, public school)

[Born 2 Roll]

News Minute: The Future of Superintendent Wilbanks - The community seems torn as to whether or not Gwinnett County Public Schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks should keep his job (Gwinnett Daily Post podcast)

[PKCorey]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

This seems to be a silly reason to fire someone for two big reasons:

1) They'll probably launch a nationwide search to replace him, anyway. I highly doubt they'll just promote someone already in the office, so turning over the position is unlikely to help them move up.

2) Even if they did fill the job with an internal candidate, they can only fill it with one person.

If anything, brining in a new supt. is very risky for these people. The new supt. may decide to get rid of many workers and bring in their own.

1. Most likely with the new board that will be the preferred model. The old board would have likely preferred an internal candidate.

Either way, he isn't a spring chicken anymore. The end of an Era is coming one way or the other.

[PKCorey]

Welp, he is thrown in the towel as of next year.

https://www.ajc.com/news/superintend...=snd-autopilot

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

Welp, he is thrown in the towel as of next year.

https://www.ajc.com/news/superintend...=snd-autopilot

The Gwinnett County Board of Education actually just discussed Wilbanks’ contract in a special meeting on Wednesday evening.

Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks is still Gwinnett County Public Schools' leader, but there are questions about his future with the district after a special called school board meeting Wednesday.

The meeting agenda showed the board was set to discuss Wilbanks' contract, as well as his performance evaluation and "Leadership Personnel" during executive session at the meeting. The board spent two and a half hours in executive decision, but did not reach any decisions on the items discussed.

Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks' contract discussed behind closed doors, but Gwinnett County school board takes no action (Gwinnett Daily Post)

[Born 2 Roll]

New light is being shed on why Gwinnett County Public Schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks' contract was discussed by the county's school board on Wednesday, and it appears to be the meeting was the first step in preparing to hire someone to replace him next year...

... It is possible that laying the groundwork for a search now could allow the school board to hire someone in time for Wilbanks and his successor to go through a transition period.

GCPS Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks is not seeking contract extension past 2022, prompting school board's conversations about his future (Gwinnett Daily Post)

[PKCorey]

They are sending him into an early retirement.

https://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett-sc...C5AQUFYM7O52Y/

I just want to see his TRS balance after 47 years....

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by PKCorey

They are sending him into an early retirement.

https://www.ajc.com/news/gwinnett-sc...C5AQUFYM7O52Y/

I just want to see his TRS balance after 47 years....

Wow.

I knew that there was a high probability that it would happen, but I did not think that the Gwinnett County Board of Education would actually follow through with firing Superintendent Wilbanks before his contract was up.

I especially did not think that the Gwinnett School Board would fire him so soon with more than a year left on his contract.

I thought that they might allow Wilbanks to finish serving out the rest of his contract, but I admit that I was wrong.

[cwkimbro]

I think they are making a mistake. This is going to be divisive within the county.

It isn't that I didn't expect them to make a change in leadership, but I think letting the contract just quietly run out would have been far less contentious, not really cause any problems, and would afford more time to not rush a search for someone to lead and have a calmer handover.

GCPS is the state's largest school system. The 13th largest in the country and teaches 11% of Georgia's K-12 students and it grew as the only traditional school district to twice when the Broad Prize, largely from how well it narrowed the achievement gap in difference races and students with socioeconomic differences.

It would have been nice to realize that success and change leadership in a less contentious and stable way.

[Born 2 Roll]

When the Georgia Department of Education recently released its list of AP Honors Schools, 22 high schools from Gwinnett County Public Schools were honored in at least one category.

Archer, Collins Hill, Duluth, Grayson and Mountain View were honored in six of the seven categories in which they were eligible.

Clay Hunter, who is Associate Superintendent for Curriculum and Instructional Support for GCPS, said the recognition showed the hard work put in by students and their teachers and support staff during a time that was particularly daunting due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

22 Gwinnett County Public Schools high schools earn AP honors (Gwinnett Daily Post)

[Born 2 Roll]

Originally Posted by cwkimbro

I think they are making a mistake. This is going to be divisive within the county.

It isn't that I didn't expect them to make a change in leadership, but I think letting the contract just quietly run out would have been far less contentious, not really cause any problems, and would afford more time to not rush a search for someone to lead and have a calmer handover.

GCPS is the state's largest school system. The 13th largest in the country and teaches 11% of Georgia's K-12 students and it grew as the only traditional school district to twice when the Broad Prize, largely from how well it narrowed the achievement gap in difference races and students with socioeconomic differences.

It would have been nice to realize that success and change leadership in a less contentious and stable way.

I don’t think that the Gwinnett BoE’s new Democratic majority is necessarily looking for calm and less contentiousness as much as they appear to be looking to assert their newfound dominance over the Gwinnett County Public Schools’ system.

While Wilbanks understandably gets generally gets many plaudits and widespread praise for his past quarter-century of seemingly standout leadership of the Gwinnett County Public Schools system, some racial and ethnic minorities have not been the biggest fans of Wilbanks’ tenure as GCPS Superintendent.

That is because of some real and perceived slights and insensitivities by Wilbanks and the past Gwinnett GOP school board majority against some key racial and ethnic minority groups when the Gwinnett BoE was dominated by white conservatives.

Some racial and ethnic minorities felt like they were often locked completely out of decision-making and governance before making inroads into Gwinnett electoral politics in the mid-late 2010’s and winning majorities on the Gwinnett BoE and Gwinnett BoC in 2020.

And now that those political, racial and ethnic minority groups have electoral majorities on governing bodies like the Gwinnett BoE and Gwinnett BoC, they appear to be looking to go in a different direction than their white Republican predecessors and put their own stamp on the local government in Georgia’s second-largest county in Gwinnett.