by Larry Joe “Wings” Howard
Calvin Watts is the first Black superintendent of Gwinnett County Public Schools.
Watts — who spent more than a decade working in the district as both an assistant principal, principal and central office employee — was unanimously hired by the Gwinnett County Board of Education on Friday afternoon to become the district’s new superintendent. The 52-year-old is also a history-maker for GCPS because he is the first African-American to serve as superintendent of Georgia’s largest school district.
Watts left GCPS in 2015 to become the superintendent of the Kent School District in Kent, Wash., and he continued to hold that job until Friday’s vote.
The big question is will Watts being the first Black superintendent of the largest school system in Georgia actually make a difference for African-American and other Black students of Gwinnett? Only time will tell.
