Dr. Torian White arrived July 1 as superintendent of Bulloch County Schools and was formally sworn in at the start of the July 9 Board of Education meeting. Now he's busy visiting principals of all 15 schools as they prepare to welcome teachers back next week.
Following an orientation for newly hired teachers and other new employees of the school system Wednesday, July 22, all teachers are expected at work in the schools for pre-planning Thursday, July 23. School starts for students Monday, Aug. 3, after school open houses for students and parents July 30 — from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. at elementary schools and from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. at middle and high schools.
The new superintendent described his first full week on the job in a phone interview last Friday, a day after his swearing-in and first board meeting.
"I've taken this time to go around and meet with district staff across the entire central office, and my assistant and I have scheduled some principal one-on-ones as well that I have started, and I will complete those by next Friday, meeting with every single principal at their building."
During those meetings with principals, he asks some common questions about them and their schools. He's also working on some planning for the first month of school and just "getting up to speed on what some duties and responsibilities are," he said.
Multiple mentors
Asked if he receives any special orientation as a superintendent — or just picks it up on the job as an experienced principal stepping up to another level — White revealed that he has been assigned a mentor from the Georgia School Superintendents Association.
"This is a current superintendent in a similar district who has a small group of new superintendents, and we converse about what's going on, and he's there to consult and support, and there's some upcoming trainings this fall, and I'll be a part of those in a program this year," he said.
That is also the GSSA's superintendent induction program. He preferred not to identity the assigned mentor superintendent but said it is someone in a nearby district.
Additionally, White has another, transitional mentor unique to his situation here. Richard Smith, who had previously retired as a superintendent and continued as executive director of the First District Regional Educational Service Agency, or RESA, served as interim superintendent of the Bulloch County Schools from April 1 — the day after previous long-time Superintendent Charles Wilson's retirement took effect — until White arrived on the job.
Smith was continuing to assist White in the transition even last week, as White indicated during the Thursday evening, July 9, board meeting. Smith attended and sat in the back of the room, and White publicly thanked him.
In fact, in accepting White's personnel recommendations near the end of the meeting, the board quietly approved continuing to employ Smith as "retiree staff" in a "49%" part-time role as a district administrator.
"So while the (GSSA) mentor is in a neighboring district that I can call, Richard is here and is continuing to help to transition with certain overlapping approvals and just making sure that I am in the best position to keep moving forward," White said Friday.
Supporter since kindergarten
An influential educator from a much earlier phase of White's life attended last week's meeting to "celebrate and commemorate," as she described it, his arrival as a superintendent. Dr. Tonia Howard-Hall is now an elected member of the Savannah-Chatham County Board of Education.
But in the mid-to-late 1980s, she was a kindergarten teacher at South Effingham Elementary School, and young Torian White was in her class — at least until she succeeded in having him moved up to first grade.
"He enrolled in my class, and I noticed he was different, meaning that he was extremely advanced," said Howard-Hall. "So after one month of working with him, I began to advocate that they move him midyear to the first grade. It didn't make any sense for a child of that intelligence to remain in kindergarten when knew things that kids in second grade (hadn't learned). He was reading probably on the first- or second-grade level."
The school's principal at first refused to allow the early promotion, but Howard-Hall asked that the faculty at least try placing White in first-grade reading for part of the day while he remained in her kindergarten class. After this was tried during recess, the first-grade teacher noted that the future superintendent had "aced" a test many first graders had failed, and White was moved up to first grade, Howard-Hall recalled.
In Friday's interview, White acknowledged that his part-year kindergarten teacher has been a long-term inspiration. She has continued to show up for milestones in his career, from his graduation from South Effingham High to last week's swearing-in.
"She is an example of the power that teachers have in advocating and getting students what they need, because making that transition to first grade put everything in my path in a different timeframe," White said. "So I'm deeply appreciative to her for being in tune to where I was as a student."
A couple of likely sources for White's advanced early reading ability, his parents, also attended last week's meeting. The Rev. Delmons White is a pastor who has served churches in Bulloch and Effingham counties, and Herlene White, who retired from banking, is also very active in church life. Dr. White said he also had the benefit of "a very strong preschool" before that rapid rise in kindergarten.
The superintendent's sons, Tyler, 18, and Trenton, 17, held the Bible for the swearing-in ceremony. Superintendents of Georgia's city and county school districts are now appointees, hired by elected local boards, but the tradition of swearing them in dates back decades to when the superintendents were elected officials.
Bulloch County Probate Judge Lorna DeLoach did the honors, reading the oath for him to affirm.
In the board meeting that followed, White made formal recommendations to the board on items presented by staff. Among those were a couple of facilities contracts, but only for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system replacements or renovations at Statesboro High School and the existing Southeast Bulloch High School building.
The new SEBHS?
The next day, the Statesboro Herald asked White when he expects to take part in the groundbreaking for the new, 2,000-student, two-story Southeast Bulloch High School. Under a master plan developed in the last few years of Wilson's tenure, this building is expected to increase overall capacity of the system. The existing SEB High building would become Southeast Bulloch Middle School, and the existing SEB Middle building, where White was principal from 2014 to 2019, would become a new entity, Southeast Bulloch Upper Elementary.
"As presented by the architect (Craig Buckley of James W. Buckley & Associates) at a previous meeting, we anticipate breaking ground this fall, although a specific date has not been set," White said.
The anticipated time to completion of the school is still around three years, he said.
The millage rate
White directly addressed another topic of widespread interest — the effect the school system budget will have on local property taxes — as part of his first "superintendent's report" during last week's meeting. The board developed the fiscal year 2027 budget during Wilson's last few months on the job and completed and adopted it during Smith's interim service.
The budget year started July 1. But actually setting the property tax millage rate will, as most years, be a later decision.
"Also, I know that right now the millage rate is on the minds of several of our citizens, so I just want to communicate it is the board's intention to avoid a millage rate increase," White announced. "There's been discussion also of a rollback. However, at this time we don't have a concrete number for what that looks like, but we are expecting the official tax digest within the next 10 business days.
"So it is our intention to update you at the next board meeting," he concluded.
The next day, the Herald asked him for an eighth-day appraisal of the difference between being a school principal and a county schools superintendent.
"I think the biggest difference is, my perspective has to be much broader than a school, than one school and one group of staff members and one group of students, to now there are 15 schools and central office staff and 11,000 students to think about," White said.