Don Phipps will retire Sept. 30, leaving board members to choose another temporary leader while the district protects its financial recovery and searches for longer-term stability.
By Staff Report
One day after students returned to classrooms, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools is turning to another question about its future: who will lead the district after Sept. 30?
The Board of Education is expected to discuss the search for an interim superintendent Tuesday following Superintendent Don Phipps’ announcement that he plans to retire at the end of September. 88.5 WFDD
The timing makes this more than another personnel change.
WS/FCS is trying to move beyond a financial crisis that resulted in deep staffing reductions, emergency fundraising, state scrutiny and months of uncertainty for employees and families. Last week, district officials announced that the accumulated debt had been paid, though the exact year-end fund balance remains subject to financial closeout and audit work. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
The next superintendent—interim or permanent—will inherit responsibility for making sure the district’s recovery becomes routine rather than temporary.
Phipps was appointed Oct. 3, 2025, and began work Dec. 1. The district emphasized his experience managing academic and financial challenges in Caldwell and Beaufort county schools. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
He arrived after Interim Superintendent Catty Moore had led much of the emergency response to the district’s budget crisis.
Now the Board of Education faces another leadership transition less than a year later.
The board should make the process unusually transparent.
The first question is the scope of the interim job. Board members need to decide whether the person is expected simply to maintain operations while a permanent search proceeds or whether the interim will have authority to make major personnel, program and financial decisions.
That distinction matters in a district still undergoing change.
WS/FCS adopted a new strategic plan last week with goals tied to academic performance, graduation, absenteeism, staff retention, family involvement and school climate. At the same meeting, the board approved an intervention aimed at reducing racial disparities in discipline and heard Phipps announce that the district had resolved its accumulated debt. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
The interim superintendent will therefore inherit work that is already underway and, in several cases, attached to measurable deadlines.
The board should also tell the public whether an interim candidate will be eligible to seek the permanent position.
An interim who expects to compete for the job may approach major decisions differently from a short-term administrator who knows someone else will eventually take over. Neither approach is inherently improper, but the rules should be clear before a person is selected.
The permanent-search process needs equal clarity.
When Phipps was appointed, WS/FCS described him as a veteran North Carolina leader known for collaborative leadership and financial management. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
The district’s needs today are broader.
Financial competence remains essential. But the next long-term superintendent will also need to lead a diverse school system dealing with academic recovery, persistent racial disparities in discipline, staffing pressures, transportation shortages, student safety and declining enrollment-related funding.
The board should develop that candidate profile publicly.
Parents should be asked what they need from a superintendent. Teachers and principals should be asked what leadership problems are most urgent inside schools. Students should have a formal voice, particularly on safety, discipline, mental health and school climate.
Community input should happen before finalists are selected, not merely after a preferred candidate has emerged.
The board also needs to protect the institutional knowledge gained during the financial crisis.
The N.C. Office of the State Auditor documented failures in budgeting, reconciliation and financial oversight that allowed major expenses and obligations to go unrecorded or inadequately controlled. The district has said it implemented new financial systems and controls as part of its recovery. NC Auditor
A change in superintendent cannot become a change in standards.
Leadership transitions can produce a familiar organizational problem: each new executive arrives with a new vocabulary, new priorities and a new structure, leaving employees to restart work they had only recently begun.
WS/FCS should resist that cycle where possible.
The board adopted a strategic plan through 2028. Unless new evidence demonstrates that specific goals are wrong, the interim should be expected to implement the board’s adopted direction rather than create another temporary agenda. Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools
Monday’s first day provided a reminder of what ultimately matters.
WFDD reported an energetic, hopeful opening at Wiley Magnet Middle School, even as teachers acknowledged that the effects of last year’s budget cuts have not completely disappeared. That account is one school’s experience, not a districtwide assessment, but it reflects the balance WS/FCS is trying to hold: optimism without pretending that its institutional problems are gone. 88.5 WFDD
Students do not experience a superintendent search as an organizational chart.
They experience whether buses arrive, whether classrooms have teachers, whether schools feel safe and whether adults respond consistently when problems occur.
The next interim superintendent will be responsible for protecting those basics while the board decides who should lead for the longer term.
That makes Tuesday’s conversation consequential even if no appointment is made.
The district has spent more than a year trying to move from crisis toward stability.
Its superintendent transition should now demonstrate what institutional stability looks like: clear rules, public timelines, continuity of essential work and a leadership search conducted in the open.