By Ashley Merryman | USN&WR
When Walter Gonsoulin became superintendent of public schools in Jefferson County, Alabama, in 2019, the district was known for its struggling schools. According to the Alabama Department of Education, only 66% of Jefferson County Schools high school seniors in the school year preceding his tenure graduated with the skills to succeed in college or a job. To compound the issues, Gonsoulin – the first Black permanent superintendent in the district’s 200-year history – was limited in what he could do, as the Birmingham-area district had been under federal supervision ever since a 1965 desegregation lawsuit.
In just five years, Gonsoulin, now 56, has already made so much progress that this year, AASA, the School Superintendents Association, named him the National Superintendent of the Year.
Under Gonsoulin’s leadership, the percentage of those leaving high school with necessary skills has climbed to 82%. The class of 2024 graduated with more than $108 million in scholarships. For those who want to go directly into the workforce, Gonsoulin works with local businesses to get them jobs as soon as they graduate. And earlier this year, the district finally settled the 60-year-old desegregation lawsuit.
While Gonsoulin tracks everything, from curricula to construction, to ensure that the district of 57 schools serving 36,000 students is always improving, Gonsoulin said in an interview with U.S. News & World Report the key to his leadership is that “it’s all personal to me.”
Gonsoulin says that begins with respecting and valuing everyone from cafeteria staff to district leadership. He spends time with parents, staff, students, civic leaders, focus groups and others. Then he tries to put the insights he gains into practice with compassion and empathy, he says.
That “makes leadership easy,” he says. “Even if you’re tired, disappointed or frustrated, you dust it off. Giving up is never an option because someone is counting on you.”
As the first in his immediate family to graduate from high school, he sees himself in the families he serves.
The oldest of six, he grew up with limited means in the small town of Jeanerette, Louisiana. Although his family didn’t have much schooling, they taught him that education was important. But getting an education meant leaving home, and it would be a lonely journey. He couldn’t call home for support – they didn’t have a phone – and they wouldn’t understand what he was doing anyway.
At 16, Gonsoulin enlisted in the National Guard. After he finished high school, Gonsoulin served in the military for six years, including a year in Iraq during the Gulf War. He earned two bachelor’s degrees, a master’s and a doctorate. He worked his way up the ranks as a teacher and school administrator in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
He says he understands the challenges his students face and that his district leadership is “constantly challenging ourselves to innovate, to think beyond where we are.” His team isn’t just trying to think outside the box. “We think there is no box.”
For example, rather than competing against other schools for hiring teachers, Gonsoulin has offered to pay college tuition for paraprofessional aides working in his schools if they will teach in the district after they graduate.
To increase students’ career readiness, in 2022, Gonsoulin established 20 “Signature Academies” within the high schools. In these programs, students receive training in practical skills, such as agricultural science, automotive technology, biomedical science, culinary arts, cybersecurity and more. Some students earn industry certifications, while others finish high school with associate degrees.
Gonsoulin’s leadership approach – taking care of the personal – began during the first month of his teaching career in 1991. Teaching back in his hometown, he’d been assigned a class of struggling sixth graders. Gonsoulin’s great-grandmother had told him that, if he truly wanted the children to succeed, he should visit every student’s family within the first 30 days of the school year.
Night was falling as he arrived at one girl’s home and sat with her mother in the living room, discussing her smart but underperforming daughter. Even as it got dark, no one turned on a lamp. Finally a child brought a candle to light the room, and Gonsoulin realized the family had no electricity. The girl wasn’t completing her homework because she couldn’t finish it in the dark.
For the rest of the year, Gonsoulin remained in his classroom every evening so the girl could study with the lights on.
The girl thrived, and she graduated six years later.
Now, nearly 35 years later, Gonsoulin still shines a light on his students – learning what they need and then doing whatever he can to help them succeed.
