William McCown answers a question during his interview for the county superintendent's position Friday evening at the central office.

As a former school system superintendent, William McCown is one of the most experienced candidates vying to become Cullman County schools next leader — and the current Northwest Georgia RESA principals’ center coordinator leaned on that expertise in his public interview for the position Friday night.

McCown, who served as superintendent of Gordon County Schools for six years before briefly retiring a few years ago, noted he brings a proven track record of leading and serving in school system’s that are comparable to Cullman County’s rural make up.

“I’m a superintendent with a proven record of improving student achievement,” he said. “When I went to Gordon County, we found many schools and teachers doing a great job, but didn’t find a system of teamwork, where everybody was working together. It was a challenge to build a team but we did it, and improved the graduation rate by 25 percent in five years.”

McCown was the fourth of five candidates to interview for the position. Interviews are set to run resume next Monday. All interviews are held at 6:30 p.m. in the central office board room.

Along with Wright, Dr. Brandon Payne interviewed Tuesday night; Dr. Jason Wright interviewed Wednesday night; Dr. Craig Ross interviewed Thursday night; and Dr. Tena Elisabeth Davis will interview Monday, April 28.

When asked his philosophy on teaching, McCown told the story of his own third grade teacher, who inspired him to pursue a career in education.

“All educators with a heart for the business were inspired by an educator, and I was inspired by my third grade teacher Jojo, and I remember her because she remembered me,” he said. “Even 45 years after I finished her class, she continues to keep in touch and see where we all are. I share that story with young teachers every year, about the people who inspired us in the classroom and inspired us throughout life. My goal was to be the ‘Jojo’ for children in my schools. It’s all about those relationships, and when they’re important to you, it impacts how hard those students work and how they think about their education.”

If hired, McCown said he would make a concerted effort to improve and sustain communication between the school system and local industries, the community, parents, teachers and students.

“We can communicate quickly and efficiently when we need to, but nothing beats one-on-one opportunities, because you need two-way communication,” he said. “I’ve always worked with teacher advisory boards, and we’ve done the same thing with business committees, to develop a great relationship,” he said. “Plus, the easiest group to gather information from are students. Just ask them what’s going well and what they don’t like. If they really think you’ll do it, they’ll tell you what can make their school better. We’ve also had students in the workforce, and college, come back and tell us what we did well and didn’t do well. we’ve learned so much from that.”

McCown said he would take a goal-oriented approach to fiscal management, looking at the budget from the angle of how it can be used to achieve the board’s goals.

“Look at impactful ways to staff your schools, and you’ll get a better decision by talking to those teachers and having their voice heard in the budgeting process,” he said. “The superintendent needs to draft a budget for the board, and use that as the start of a conversation. How are we going to meet our goals? How are we going to be accountable for that?”

When asked about his approach to technology, McCown noted his experience in a relatively low-income system, and said they had to find innovative ways to introduce technology in the classroom via grant funds. The former superintendent added he would be extremely cautious about how to move forward with major tech upgrades.

“We eventually moved into bring your own device, which is its own can of worms. It requires a lot of conversations with students, training and infrastructure for bandwidth,” he said. “Our 1:1 [device] initiative is something we were starting as I retired, but now that’s well underway. I think some of these lessons were learned the hard way, because we can get so excited to put these devices in the classrooms, but I think an incredible, awesome teacher is more important than any piece of technology. If we do implement new technology, we don’t need to move so quickly that they don’t have time to get acclimated and know how to properly use that equipment.”

In regards to making hard choices, McCown said he would always strive to be fair and make the decision that is in the best interest of the students, and school system.

“It’s almost like the more difficult the situation, the easier the situation. We need to look at what is our mission, and what are our goals? If the decision supports the goals, then it’s a good decision,” he said. “Those tough decisions, sometimes you have to make them and take your lumps as they come. If we’ve made that decision consistently and fairly over time, people start to see and believe, they must be fair. They might not like it, or might not agree, but they’ll see we stuck to what we said and were fair.”

If hired, McCown said he would spend the first few months getting acclimated to the system and meeting with employees to find out both the good and bad of the system in an effort to move forward.

“I’d spend a lot of time listening and building relationships, finding out where this train is already headed,” he said. “I think we would change things overtime, because we can never be good enough for our students. There’s something to always be striving for.”