Watts Chosen As Sole Finalist For Gwinnett Schools Superintendent

GWINNETT COUNTY, GA — Gwinnett County’s school board voted unanimously Thursday to approve Calvin Watts as the sole finalist to be the district’s next superintendent.

If the board’s choice is approved, Watts will become the first Black superintendent of Georgia’s largest school district, reflecting its changing demographics. When outgoing Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks took over in 1996, the district was mostly white. The Gwinnett County school district is now 80 percent non-white, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

For Watts, it’s a homecoming of sorts: Before becoming superintendent of Kent School District in suburban Seattle in 2015, Watts served in Gwinnett County Public Schools for 13 years, eventually rising to assistant superintendent. Although Watts grew up in Washington and took his first teaching job in Seattle, he said Thursday Gwinnett Schools were where he “grew up professionally.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Watts’ Georgia resume extends back to the 1990s, when he taught at Inman Middle School in Atlanta and Carrollton Junior High School. Watts later served as an assistant principal at Immaculate Heart of Mary Catholic School in Atlanta and Bethesda Elementary School in Lawrenceville before landing his first principal’s job at St. Peter Claver Regional Catholic School in Decatur. Watts rejoined the Gwinnett school system in 2003, serving as principal of Annistown Elementary School in Snellville and Trickum Middle School in Lilburn before becoming assistant superintendent.

Although the school board unanimously approved Watts, by Georgia law his appointment can’t be official for at least two weeks. The board is expected to finalize hiring Watts on July 29 at a special called meeting, the day before Wilbanks retires.

Read the statement introducing Watts on the Gwinnett County Public Schools website.