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Maurice “Mo” Green seems to cover a lot of ground without hurrying.

In two weeks as superintendent of Guilford County Schools, Green has gotten around. He’s visited schools across the county and met principals, teachers, students, parents and community leaders. He’s spoken to civic groups and a church congregation. He’s initiated a weekly news briefing and given media interviews. He’s started a blog.

Green takes a calm and methodical approach to his ambitious schedule. If he’s ever in a rush, he doesn’t show it. Maybe he has more hours in his day than other people.

When he speaks, he chooses his words carefully, repeating key phrases for emphasis. He forms precise sentences in a deliberate cadence. Yet he makes clear his first job is to listen and learn. He’s new to Guilford County, and he plans to assess the school system’s strengths and weaknesses and evaluate needs and expectations, seeking input from many sources before proposing changes.

In that way, Green will prove to be a different sort of superintendent from his predecessor. Terry Grier, now head of schools in San Diego, Calif., sometimes threw out ideas first, then tried to win support for them. He often gave the impression that decisions were made before anyone knew what was coming. Green aims more to forge ideas and strategies collaboratively.

Lead by example

Green’s listening and learning tour isn’t just for his own benefit, he told News & Record editorial writers Thursday: “Part of what I’m trying to do is lead by example. ... I’m starting to show folks the path we will follow. We will listen.”

His track record backs him up. The Charlotte Observer praised Green, as deputy superintendent of Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, for improving relations with parents and restoring trust in the system. He’s begun the same process here, patiently listening to parents’ complaints about lack of response from Guilford school officials.

While distressed by the parents’ problems, Green said, hearing them “warmed my heart no end. They were willing to come out and say, ‘I’ve got concerns and I’m willing to express them.’ I can work with that. Now we can go down the same path together.”

The path leads through open doors, Green promises: “This is a public school system. Public, public, public. Let’s be sure we’re transparent.”

A lawyer by training, Green never taught. That makes it all the more critical for him to solicit views from the classroom before trying to rearrange the educational desks, chairs and computer tables.

Challenges and changes

At the same time, Green wasn’t hired and signed to a four-year contract for $250,000 a year to simply listen and learn. He’s expected to make tough decisions and get things done. The demands on schools have never been greater. State and federal accountability standards are just the beginning. Employers and colleges and universities want young people who are ready for work and higher education. Nothing less than a well-educated work force will permit the quality of economic development Guilford County desires.

Green says he accepts the challenge and welcomes the pressure. The key to academic improvement is putting strong principals in every school and outstanding teachers in every classroom, and especially in classrooms where students have struggled.

Also keeping them there.

Green acknowledged the problem of principal turnover, which sometimes occurs when the best principals seek promotions to central-office jobs or transfers to bigger schools. He’d address that by making sure “principals understand their best work is being done in the schools where they are and in the schools in general” — and by trying to reward them financially and with growth opportunities there.

One organizational change Green says he’s likely to put on the table for consideration echoes a Charlotte-Mecklenburg plan he implemented: the creation of several “learning communities” within the county, each almost a sub-school district with its own area superintendent and staff. All answer to a central authority, but they make schools more responsive to their own communities. “I think it is working very, very well,” Green said.

Guilford County isn’t the same as Charlotte-Mecklenburg, as Green is learning. A quick study, he should know the new terrain very well soon. Then comes the harder part. But if Green wins trust, relies on the knowledge and experience of others, taps into community resources, maintains transparency and focuses on the mission of educating children, he’ll help make good things happen for Guilford County Schools.

He doesn’t have to hurry, but he does have a lot of ground to cover quickly.