Former MCPS Community Superintendent Sean Bulson finalist in Cecil County Superintendent Search

...Sean BulsonBulson spent the first 16 years of his career in Montgomery County Public Schools, where he finished as community superintendent, supervising 36 schools with approximately 24,000 students. In 2011, he became superintendent of Wilson County Schools in North Carolina, supervising 12,000 students and 26 schools. Today, he works in the University of North Carolina system, where he focuses on educator preparation and directs a portfolio of statewide programs that support schools and school districts.
“To me, leadership is very much about relationships,” he said. “A leader needs followers.”
Bulson emphasized that a leader should strive to be visionary, collaborative and entrepreneurial.
A superintendent may work closely with a school board, but he or she should be steering the direction of the ship, he added. Once established, the superintendent should be the greatest cheerleader and proponent for the vision decided upon.
“I am an includer by nature; I always want other experts in the room helping me come up with solutions,” he said. “I never assume I’m the smartest guy in the room.”
A superintendent should also examine the resources that already exist in a community to see what can be leveraged to improve outcomes, he said.
“A school district does not exist independently of the broader community,” he added.
Bulson said it’s also important to provide excellent customer service to families with students in the system as well as members of the broader community who fund the system.
“The broader community needs to see the importance of the schools. We not only prepare workers but we also attract them,” he said. “If they’re willing to come here and put their kids in our schools, it makes it easier on them to exist as a business.”
Bulson, who started his career as a Montgomery County teacher for students who were non-native English speakers, said his experience in the classroom taught him to “look at students as individuals, bringing very different experiences to a classroom.”
“I served kids from 15 or 20 different countries, speaking 18 different languages — everything from kids coming out of war zones escaping with only their lives to ambassadors’ children,” he said.
Those experiences also informed him that the best solutions often come from those closest to students: their teachers.
“We need to have high expectations for our teachers, but we also need to give them a great deal of respect for what they do. And the more they’re engaged in making a difference in addressing some of these challenges, the easier it will be to keep them and the more sustainable our results will be, because they are a big part of solving those problems,” he said. “That’s going to exist long beyond an initiative that came from my office.”
As a superintendent in North Carolina, Bulson said he tried to give his teachers as much flexibility as possible.
“You can lead for results or you can lead for process, and I generally lean toward results,” he said. “I can’t tell you what to do and how to do it. Let’s set high standards and then support you as much as possible, but also give you space to do the work and succeed.”
Bulson noted that as missions of county and state agencies overlap, there’s a greater need for coordination to reduce redundancy and increase partnerships that produce positive outcomes for all students.
Bulson recalled his work in Wilson County, N.C., where the local detention center was located directly across the street from his office, and every day he watched as they drove in new prisoners.
“My goal was to keep kids off the street,” he said, noting that he strived to place students with behavioral problems at alternative programs within the system in order to avoid them dropping out. “I’m constantly looking for more solutions to student behaviors. There’s no perfect solution, but you come to those solutions in working with the other leaders to find the best fit.”..
http://www.cecildaily.com/schools/superintendent-finalists-discuss-views-on-leadership-schools-role/article_54e15fb4-5696-5f07-84a8-76bdf441a8b7.html