Interview of Dr. Ira Trollinger, Superintendent of McDowell County Schools

Interview of Dr. Ira Trollinger, Superintendent of McDowell County Schools
February 14th by Aaron Slutsky
Audio Download: http://goo.gl/di5fZ

Please give me a review of your responsibilities.
Superintendent of McDowell County Schools.  Main responsibility is to work with School Board to do three key things: 1. Develop a budget 2. Develop policies 3. Hiring.
Has an Associate Superintendent that works with operations and an Assistant Superintendent  that works with Instructional Programs.

What educational and work experiences have you had that have led you to your present work?
38th year in education
High School teacher at Eastern Allamance HS and Chapel Hill HS
Supervisor of Math and Science in Buncombe County
Principal of South Mebane ES
Assistant Superintendent of Instruction at Orange County
Superintendent in Rockingham County (merged 4 systems into 1)
UNC Greensboro Instruction for College of Education, Lead a program with a Chemistry professor and taught MS science teachers a background in all sciences and developed classroom activities.
Superintendent of 8 years at Martinsville City Schools
Superintendent of McDowell County in his 7th year

Has three degrees and a wife from Chapel Hill: BS in Science Teaching
MAT, Dual PhD in Curriculum and Instruction and Administration.

What is the most rewarding parts of your job?
Seeing teachers and students going above and beyond, grasping things, running with them, and making a difference.  Seeing teachers interact with students and making a difference.  He misses contact with students and seeing them grow on a day by day basis.

What is the most negative parts of you job?
Personnel problems.  Most of the time you get a lot of effort and hard work. Every once in a while get an individual who thinks they are doing a magnificent job but are not meeting your expectations.  Having to deal with that them if you are being fair to the kids.

Describe a typical day.
There is not a typical day, but he likes it that way.  Worked in a textile plant and everything was repetitive.  Here you never know what you are going to have to deal with and what the next challenge will be.  Could be the report of danger at school, bus accident, marvelous performance of Chinese acrobats.  A lot more positives than negatives.

What is your role in the decision making process?
Has been accused of running school system by committee.  Believes Superintendent should surround yourself with as many good strong people as you can find and can afford.  Then get out of their way and let them do their jobs and let them show initiative.  Superintendents should be the biggest cheerleader and support good, strong programs and encouraging initiatives.  You are going to have a program fail and not work like you thought is would, but that’s alright too.  If you are batting 1000 you get complacent.  Key is everyone is respected for their opinions and you ask for their opinions.  Open discussion and debate so everyone can grow and learn.  But must step in in heated  situations, come down and make that decisions.  Be ready to take responsibility and admit you were wrong if you were or show people what was right.  Keep things positive and move forward.

How do you make curriculum decisions?  What steps do you take?
Math program was series of worksheets, students were defining math as the number of worksheets they have completed.  He got the teachers (they didn’t want to change it was a time issue.  Work sheets allowed kids to work and teachers could instruct other things)  Asked principals/teachers/central office to look at what should be included and taught in an Elementary math program.  Not everyone was sold on it.  One teacher volunteered to pay for the worksheets herself/himself.

You can’t expect to put something in new and expect everything to fall into place.  You have to actively work with teachers, train the teachers, review with teachers.  Let the teachers add some creativity themselves to make it more fun for student.  He is passionate about engaging kids in learning process.  Which is why we have many robotics, Science Olympiad, art, global education, and preforming arts opportunities

Believes every child has a gift, we are charged with finding out what that gift might be and help that child use their gift.

What influences do state and federal policies have on your work?
As the years go by, more and more and more and more.  We now have a NC state curriculum, and now joined to common core.  Moving toward nation curriculum, closers that he has ever seen.  Positive and negatives from that.

He still tries to look at the global perspective.  When he was in China he was asked how to teach creativity and innovation.  Answered that it is not so much we teach creativity and innovation, but we allow it and encourage it. We allow kids to organize information and come up with new ways of doing things, not all memory work. Team problem solving with multiple ways to answer.

How often do you teach and observe in classrooms?
I missed this question.  I know he often teaches classes, especially science.

How do you feel about national core standards?
We are moving toward nation curriculum, closers that he has ever seen.  That has some positives and negatives.  I should have asked to elaborate.

Please give me your best advice about entering this profession.
Take every day as a learning opportunity.  Don’t be hesitant about doing new things.  He recently heard leading brain research talk about what they know about the brain and what instructional impact that should have.  In his 38 years, this was the first time he heard brain research and how it should translate to the classroom.  Must be willing to learn new things and strive to be life long learners.