Guilford County School Superintendent Sharon Contreras announced in a letter to school employees on Friday, Jan. 14 that she would be leaving at the end of the school year.
In the letter, Contreras states that she has accepted the position of CEO of The Innovation Project, “which bring together forward-thinking North Carolina school district superintendents to find and implement innovative and transformative practices in public education so that students and their communities can thrive.”
Contreras has been superintendent since August 2016 and in 2020 was reportedly on the short list of those being considered by the Biden administration for secretary of education.
But her tenure as Guilford County School superintendent has not been without controversy.
In 2017, a personal email from Guilford County Board of Education member Anita Sharpe that called for Contreras to be fired was leaked to the public, which led to groups calling for Sharpe to resign.
In 2019, then Guilford County Board of Education member Darlene Garrett announced that after serving on the school board for 20 years she would not be running for reelection. She said that one of the reasons for her decision was that she could not continue to serve while Contreras was superintendent. Garrett complained about a lack of communication between her and Contreras and not being included in the decision-making process.
Garrett had also been quoted as saying that there were four votes to fire Contreras on the nine-member school board, but not five.
The majority of the school board supported Contreras and had extended her contract to 2025.
More recently Contreras made the controversial decision to suspend school bus transportation to eight Guilford County high schools because of the lack of school bus drivers had been exacerbated by having a large number unable to work because of COVID-19.
It was arranged for high school students take city buses to school at no cost to the students.
What took so long there is a God after all
Thank you. Now maybe we can get a business person to lead our system again and not an “educator”.
My general rule of thumb is that common sense is inversely proportional the the level of hierarchy in the school system
Glad she’s leaving just hearing her on TV reminds me of being in school a having someone drag their fingernails down a chalkboard just raised the hair on my neck. Another waste of time and taxpayer money this one was.
Why wait?
Good news for GCS.
Good riddence I mean no answers for covid or school bus shortages or aid to teachers she seemed to need billions of dollars to do what keep? Now she will be working for a non profit meaning she will make money without taxation, she was only considered for dept of Ed because she is black and deaf tg she did not get that job, but whomever gets her hold your wallets she’s coming!
Contreras is NOT qualified to manage a lemonade stand, much less anything to do with education. It’s like they say, incompetence is rewarded by advancement.
Dont expect too much.Arent these the same goofuses that brought her in here? I do feel sorry for the Innovation Project.They now have their very own Kamala Harris.
I don’t drink, I don’t cuss, I wanna ride on the… God I miss Billy Yow.
Good bye to bad rubbish! I can’t stand to look at or listen to this smarmy tax feeder! Hurry up and hit the road!
Good news for Guilford County Schools. Our school board always seems to hire people they were losers in their prior jobs and given a vote of no confidence. GCS board has hired 4 “supers” since all the schools in the county were merged – Jerry Weast (dr. Waste) Terry Grier “get out of here , Mo Green and Dr Sharon. The only one worth a damn was Mo Green (an attorney who understood how to run a business). The other three were/are professional educators. Connect the dots. Hire a business person and not an educator and try to improve the board’s 25% getting it right record.
Your last sentence is the key. Local school boards are citizens who have NOOOOOO background in what qualifications are needed for a superintendent. They DO NOT need an educator with a PhD to run things, but someone who understands the purpose of a budget, and how to manage a budget without spending all the money, and how to implement change.
You want change in the county schools? Hire a private enterprise CEO who has built a business in goods and bad times.
Hope she has to take a city bus to get to her new job.
We don’t want another blue state refugee. If at all possible, try to put someone in the slot who could make some decent decisions based on cost/benefit to the WHOLE school system. Enough with the hired consultants.
Folks, the key here is to completely replace the school “bored” with people that have common sense and are determined to insist on fiscal responsibility and student accomplishments. The lies that have come out of the school district concerning the advances that this woman has made are limitless. The teachers know how bad this has been. If you are a business person looking to hire a young person, would you not expect them to be able to communicate in English, write a complete sentence, do simple math (add, subtract, multiply and divide) without the use of a calculator? The system says that they have a graduation rate of 91%. Of course, if you decide to pass everyone whether they are qualified for a high school diploma or not, you can claim success. Unfortunately, you are actually cheating the students by not requiring them to complete their education so that they can be successful. This is the new concept of education where it is more important to just push them through than to educate them. This is the reason that parents are refusing to send their children to public schools. The public schools have become a cesspool of horrible performance. This will not change until the so called “professional educators” are replaced with business people who understand budgets, performance and accountability. Do not vote for the school bonds until the system is changed.
Mr Nelson I agree 100% with you on the state of our schools but I have to say also the schools can’t educate the children by themselves parents have to get involved. In my generation our parents made sure we did our homework,checked our tests scores somehow they always knew when we had one and most of all we always respected the teachers. Teachers have a tough job and a lot of today’s parents don’t help the situation