The Clarke County School District Board of Education announced Dr. Demond Means, Mequon-Thiensville School District (MTSD) superintendent, as the final candidate for superintendent of Clarke County, Ga. Dr. Means attended a Superintendent Candidate Forum on April 3 at Whitehead Road Elementary School in Georgia where he was presented as the sole candidate for the superintendent position.

At the moment, no contract has been finalized.  According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Means said he is drawn to the district’s “‘innovative work,’ particularly in the areas of equity and social justice.”

MTSD School Board President Stephanie Clark declared Means’ position as a finalist in a letter to households and MTSD employees on April 3.

In an article posted to the Odyssey Online, the district’s high school student journalism site, Means shared that he “wants to make [CCSD] a destination district where teacher candidates are saying, ‘I want to teach there. I want to go teach at [CCSD.] They’re doing some really innovative things. They have the right mindset. I’m aligned to the work that they are doing.’ Over time, we will make [CCSD] that destination district and it will be a fun place.”

As presented by the Athens Flagpole Magazine, Means feels drawn to Clarke County as he has “the opportunity to help minority and low-income students.” The Clarke County School District is 79 percent minority with 49 percent of students African-American, 24 percent of students Hispanic and 21 percent White.

At the forum on April 3, Charles Worthy, Board President of CCSD, presented Means to a crowd of 250 and offered a question and answer session between Means and the audience. Means presented a speech and shared his visions for the district.

“I am here tonight, humbly, to ask you to work with me as I transition to become your next superintendent,” Means said. “I want to serve this community because I thoroughly believe that a school system that attends to the most historically marginalized children in our nation, and in this case this school system, those are the best school systems that are around.”

Means also described his plans for the district. According to The Flagpole Magazine, Means’ ideas for the improvement of CCDS include opening up “multiple pathways” for gifted-and-talented students, bringing in more “homegrown teachers” to add to the diversity of the district’s faculty, using technology as a learning tool in the classroom and helping marginalized students.

“What I want in a leader first and foremost is somebody that cares about students’ success, and I felt like I heard that from Dr. Means,” Marie Yuran, Clarke County high school principal, said.

As stated by Anisa Sullivan Jimenez, CCSD spokeswoman, the board will vote on Means’ appointment at its work session Thursday, April 6.

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