McNulty: Called to the classroom
He values system diversity, focus on all students, he says
McNulty, an applicant for superintendent in the Pulaski County Special School District, says he doesn’t have it in him to be confined for long hours in an administrative office but is constantly drawn into classrooms of students and teachers.
“I really have to work on my persistence,” he joked about his seeming wanderlust, then added more seriously that the call to the classrooms is part of his commitment to support other educators in their efforts to provide rigorous, innovative and engaging opportunities for student learning.
McNulty, 55, is the associate superintendent for educational services in the 10,800-student Waterloo, Iowa, Community School District, a position he has held for nearly four years after earlier stints as an assistant professor at the University of Northern Iowa at Cedar Falls, superintendent of the 500-student Blackhawk School District in South Wayne, Wis., and principal of what started out as an academically troubled Carl Sandburg Middle School in Freeport, Ill., but morphed into a school of excellence where the racial achievement gap was significantly narrowed.
In an interview last week, McNulty said he and his wife, Yaa Appiah-McNulty, an elementary school principal in Iowa City Community School District, are passionate about education and seeking out opportunities to help fulfill the promises that education holds — but doesn’t always deliver for everyone.
“We are very selective in what we are looking for — a diverse community, a community that is focused on education and an educational system that is focused on all students,” McNulty said. “We are more than content to stay,” he said about their Iowa jobs, “but we were excited about what I saw on the Pulaski district’s website and what we know about the Little Rock area.”
The couple, married two years and parents in a blended family of four school-aged children, saw parts of Arkansas just recently on a spring break car trip to New Orleans and Memphis.
The racially and ethnically diverse Waterloo district, which has a poverty rate of about 70 percent, is home to International Baccalaureate college preparatory programs in its two high schools, as well as a new career technical education center that has started with a focus on nursing and graphics, and is expected to expand soon to advanced manufacturing, early childhood education and other career strands.
Then there is the Discover the Dream program, announced last summer, that is a collaboration between the district and the University of Northern Iowa to expose middle school pupils — particularly those from low income families and/or members of minority groups — to the university and potential for scholarships.
Also new to Waterloo during McNulty’s tenure is a French-English dual-language immersion program that started this year with a single kindergarten class and will grow next school year to include more classes and the addition of Spanish.
The district is the first in the state, a local television station reported late last month, to start a “Twice Exceptional” program to meet the academic needs of students who are gifted but also have one or more disabilities.
Those initiatives are on top of efforts to promote readingand writing-across-the-curriculum and developing districtwide intermittent “formative” assessments to gauge student progress.
McNulty says he’s learned in his career as an educator that “you can’t intervene your way to excellence” in student achievement.
“You have to build enrichment and ‘signature’ programs into the core curriculum,” McNulty said about the importance of laying groundwork of academic rigor and good teaching. “That’s what we are doing, and we are seeing a lot of success around that.”
Jane Lindaman, the superintendent of the Waterloo district, praised McNulty in a detailed letter of recommendation in which she said she “fervently hopes” he doesn’t leave his current job. She called McNulty excellent and a catalyst for change who “works with bulldog tenacity to ensure students, all students, get what they need and deserve to be successful.”
Lindaman also said: “His work with core instruction and academic supports for marginalized populations has been foundational to the improvements we are seeing across the district.”
“Under his leadership, our district experienced the largest gains of any urban district in Iowa in early literacy for the past two consecutive years. We also experienced a systemic improvement across the board in our middle schools. Graduation rate has improved the past four years, as has our use of distributed leadership and staff morale,” she said.
Amy Schmidt, an elementary principal in the Waterloo system, listed McNulty as “one of the greatest” leaders for whom she has worked in the district. She cited his emphasis on analyzing student data and challenging the faculty to use the data to guide instruction. As a result, Irving Elementary in 2015-16 received a state award for having the largest increase in academic achievement on state-required tests.
McNulty grew up in the Portland, Ore., area to Canadian-immigrant parents. His bachelor’s degree is in political science and psychology. A job in an Oregon residential treatment center for felons pushed him into education where he could help provide support, structure and better opportunities to youths. His master’s degree is from Portland State University and his Ph.D. is from the University of Wisconsin. His initial teaching career was in special education in the state of Washington.
McNulty, who earns a salary of about $152,000, is a member of two state of Iowa
committees — one on statewide student testing and the other on the state’s plan for complying with the federal Every Student Succeeds Act.
“I’m a big proponent of doing something with integrity but not necessarily with fidelity,” McNulty said. “Integrity speaks to applying core elements of what we are doing, but we are going to allow professional discretion. We trust our professionals rather than monitor people into compliance. That has worked for me.”
Leveraging employee talent is key, he said.
“I believe we have to work together. It’s OK to have some dissent. It’s OK to have some contentious conversations as long as we understand that our vision is that every student — no matter where they come from, who they are or who they identify with — is given not only the best education possible but a life opportunity that everyone deserves.”