Change Agent for Changed Schools

PROFILE

Growing up in a majority Black area of Jacksonville, Fla., Jermall Wright never lacked any opportunity because of his zip code. At school, adults encouraged and inspired him. He says he felt like he could do anything.

But his perspective shifted while attending a majority white university. In a sociology class discussion about education and economic disparities, he learned that African-American males lagged on every other demographic. It was the first time he was embarrassed about being Black.

“I never felt insecure as I did in that college classroom,” says Wright. “So I developed a mission that when I became a teacher, I was going to make sure that every child who looked like me was not going to be part of this statistic.”

That moment launched him on a cross-country professional journey — teaching in schools and leading schools and districts in Denver, Philadelphia and Mississippi. He’s now serving his second year as superintendent of Little Rock School District in Arkansas.

Wright’s goal is to improve organizational culture with a focus on boosting student outcomes, especially for children of color, English language learners and those impacted by poverty.

During his tenure at his previous position as founding superintendent of the Mississippi Achievement School District, high school graduation rates increased by more than 10 percentage points. In Little Rock, achievement levels are lower than state or national norms on state-required tests, and the 2022 graduation rate hovered around 80 percent. The superintendent aims to repaint that picture.

Michael Mason, president of Little Rock’s board of education, sees that distinct possibility. “We saw he was a change agent in Mississippi where he came from,” he says. “And that’s why we selected him. We needed to change this culture back to a learning culture.”

What impresses Mason about Wright is his ability to identify and address weaknesses in schools and systems. Wright spent much of his first year in Little Rock observing, looking for those gaps. What he found was a system that long has grappled with complex political and civil rights issues, dating back to the desegregation of Little Rock Central High School in 1957.

The important fights for equity, Wright says, sometimes have shifted focus from ensuring students have what they need to learn. The constant leadership churn — 24 superintendents in the last 26 years in Little Rock — hasn’t helped. “The culture can’t get a solid ground,” Mason says.

To build that culture and nurture stronger school communities, Wright has redirected the district’s focus to the schools themselves. He decentralized the main office, creating three networks of schools within the district — two made up with elementary schools and the third with secondary schools. Each network has its own assistant superintendent and support staff.

Wright recognized that principals, particularly in elementary schools, were overwhelmed with operational issues. The district’s priority elementary schools now have a principal, an assistant and at least two secretaries, so principals can focus on instruction.

After the superintendent fielded complaints that central office-based reading and math facilitators weren’t meeting schools’ pressing needs for coaching and staff training, he authorized principals to hire their own instructional lead teachers.

Such measures have pushed staff out of their comfort zone, Mason says. Not every change has been popular. But Wright has pledged to stay for the long haul. And he’s intent on creating a district where teachers and leaders have the resources to give students what he had years ago: a supportive, inspiring place to grow and succeed.

“I want to build a district of empowered adults who believe that our kids can be and do anything they want to do,” he says, “and they do the work necessary to make that happen.”

Sarah Hall is a freelance writer in Raleigh, N.C.