Q&A: New Hanover's interim school superintendent talks about building trust, relationships

With the start of the new school year and the New Hanover County Board of Education’s recent selection of a temporary leader, the interim superintendent sat down with the StarNews to discuss how he plans to help keep the district moving forward.

The district went through a stressful budget season, dealing with a $20 million budget shortfall, and then the school board fired former superintendent Charles Foust. The school board initially appointed Christopher Barnes as acting superintendent and then recently named him to the interim position .

He sat down to answer a few questions regarding his new role and the direction of the district.

What are your daily duties as interim superintendent?

Barnes said a big portion of his job is expanding relationships with district principals because those connections are critical to finding out what is going on in each school. He said he is about halfway through getting to every school and talking to every employee, which was a priority when he was serving as the board-appointed acting superintendent as well. Barnes said creating effective communication throughout the district will allow people to not just feel informed, but also valued.

What do you think the most challenging aspect of your role is?

The most challenging part of his role so far, Barnes said, is expanding the scope of his work from his previous role as assistant superintendent of human resources. Barnes must focus more on curriculum and transportation, but by working with administrative staff and principals he said he is able to process the new information easier. He said that when dealing with the public, principals, employees and the school board, he always tries to assume good intent.

“If we can’t agree, the closer we go to what’s right for kids, the nearer we’re going to be to each other,” Barnes said.

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Why do you think it was important to district employees that the interim be someone internal?

Although he said he didn’t think that there was only one person who could do the job and do it well, the most important thing was that the person listens. Barnes said he feels the only leg-up he had as opposed to other candidates was that he already had relationships formed throughout the district because of how he had to be collaborative in his human resources role.

What can the district do better?

Barnes said he feels the district needs to tie itself back to its core purpose: educating children. He said kids also need a wide variety of things including developing critical thinking skills, developing stronger social and emotional ties and stronger academic skills, especially as students develop into adults.

“I remember when I was a high school principal, my goal was to make sure students left high school with a variety of options,” Barnes said, “that they picked what they wanted, not the only choice that was left.”

Barnes said the district needs to focus on making students competitive so that they will be prepared and be successful after they leave high school.

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How does someone in the superintendent role work with the board?

According to Barnes, the board needs to be able to feel like they can trust the superintendent to make the day-to-day operation decisions. On the other hand, Barnes said he needs to work to provide the board with sufficient information so that the board can make policy decisions and set goals that are the best for the district.

What is the district doing well?

Even though the district has been through a lot recently, Barnes said the district has had many successes, including its statewide recognition of the roll-out of the early literacy program, a grant for advanced teaching roles, and the beginning teaching program, which is one of the models for the state.

“I want to assure the public ... that what we do best is educate children and grow employees, and that’s our goal,” Barnes said.

As far as what he hopes to achieve in his time as interim, Barnes said the goal is to be able to leave the position set up and ready for the permanent superintendent to walk in with a good foundation. He said that even when his role as interim is up, he still looks forward to serving the district.

Barnes will be officially sworn in as the interim superintendent at the school board's Sept. 3 meeting.

This article originally appeared on Wilmington StarNews: Q&A: New Hanover's interim school superintendent talks about building trust, relationships