The Partners Nobody Puts on the Org Chart
What a Skeptical Parent Taught Me About Community Partnerships
I inherited Wilson County Schools in 2011, and one of the first things I noticed was how immovable the tracking practices felt. Students moved through separate academic lanes almost from the day they arrived, and the assumptions behind those lanes had calcified into something nobody questioned out loud. I started talking publicly about a shift toward more heterogeneous grouping, hoping to open a conversation the district had avoided for years.
A small group of parents heard about it. They reached out through my director of secondary education, and their message carried more concern than curiosity. I made a suggestion that surprised almost everyone involved. Rather than schedule those parents into my office, I asked if one of them would host a gathering at her home, and I would meet them on their own turf.
My secondary director agreed to come along, though I could tell he had reservations about what we might be walking into. The parent who opened her home that evening was Paula Benson.
What I Expected, and What I Found
This post is not about the merits of ability grouping versus heterogeneous grouping. That debate deserves its own space, and it produced exactly the kind of energy you would expect when I raised it in 2011. Everyone in the room saw themselves as critics of the direction I wanted to take, and we did not resolve much that evening other than to learn better about where we all stood. I could not have known it would turn out to be one of the most consequential meetings I ever attended.
Paula and I started talking regularly in the months that followed. What started as a disagreement about grouping turned into regular conversations about what would actually benefit every young person in the county. A year after that meeting in her living room, Paula and I were co-chairing a district-wide initiative together.
Wilson's Youth Master Plan
We called it Wilson's Youth Master Plan, a name I have regretted since roughly the month after we chose it. By the time I recognized how clunky it sounded, the initiative had built enough momentum that changing the name felt riskier than living with it.
The plan aimed to support young people in the county from birth to age twenty-one, organized into five impact teams: safety, education and workforce, health and wellness, K-12 academic achievement, and out-of-school time. Each team had two co-chairs, one from inside the school system and one from the community, and the pairing was deliberate. Neither person could claim full ownership of the work, so neither could treat it as someone else's problem when the work got difficult.
The community leaders we recruited did not come from a single sector. We had a representative from the chamber of commerce, a youth director from one of the county's largest churches, a police captain, the president of the community college, and a representative from the health department. None of these people worked for the school system, and none of them had to say yes when we asked.
Why This Matters Beyond Wilson County
Every school system does work that touches institutions well beyond its own walls. Public safety, workforce development, physical and mental health, and early childhood support all overlap with organizations that have their own missions, budgets, and reasons for engaging with a school district or not.
The mistake many superintendents make is treating those overlaps as occasional collaboration points rather than sustained partnerships. They call the police department when there is an incident. They call the health department when a grant requires a community partner. They call the chamber when they need a photo for the annual report. The relationship exists only when the district needs something.
Paula Benson taught me something different, and she taught it to me before I understood I needed the lesson. The people worth building with are not always the ones with titles that put them on your org chart. Sometimes they are a parent hosting a meeting in her living room because she cared enough to show up and push back. Sometimes they are a captain, a youth director, or a college president who has spent years building credibility in a community your schools serve but do not fully reach.
A Final Thought
Superintendents inherit an org chart on day one that shows who reports to you. It tells you nothing about who actually holds influence and trust in the community your schools serve.
Finding those people, official or unofficial, and tapping their genuine enthusiasm for the young people in that community is not a communications strategy. It is some of the most consequential work a superintendent can do, and it often starts far from a superintendent's office, in a living room, at a coffee shop, or in a conversation that begins as a disagreement.
Dr. Sean Bulson is a practitioner-scholar, professor of educational leadership, and the 2024 Maryland Superintendent of the Year. He served as superintendent of Harford County Public Schools from 2018 to 2026 and Wilson County Schools from 2011 to 2016. Subscribe for weekly posts on educational leadership, equity, and district transformation.