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Last night I had the great privilege to vote to approve the contract for, and thus hire, Dr. Robert Taylor to be the next Wake County Public School System superintendent. Dr. Taylor will begin October 1st and as I stated last night “I have the utmost confidence that he will do an outstanding job. This is a fantastic human being, this is an outstanding educator and leader and we are so darn lucky.”
So why did I vote for Dr. Taylor?
Among the many reasons, Dr. Taylor's extensive resume and experiences checked off a lot of boxes that our community and staff rated as very or extremely important. This includes, but isn't limited to: having been a successful classroom teacher and principal, having significant managing schools as a superintendent, modeling high standards of integrity and being an effective communicator. The latter point includes being willing to listen to input, which is crucial to being a great leader.
After checking off those boxes, it was important to me to have someone that hadn't worked in Wake County, at least not recently. While I'm not opposed to internal hires, I do believe there are times when a fresh set of eyes and a fresh perspective on the processes in place can help improve everything we are doing across the school system. It was also important to me to have someone willing to make changes if and when it's needed.
While I can't disclose anything from our closed session search process, I do want to close with this: I'm confident that once Dr. Taylor begins his term, you will quickly realize the appeal of his demeanor and personality as it relates to him being a leader. As always, if you have any questions, comments or concerns, please don't hesitate to reach out. My official board email is shershey@wcpss.net.