County district school leader withdraws S.C. job candidacy

The Pulaski County Special School District’s superintendent — whom news reports identified as one of three finalists for the superintendent’s job in Charleston County, S.C. — said Thursday evening he has withdrawn his candidacy.

Charles McNulty, 60, superintendent in the nearly 12,000-student Pulaski County Special since July 2018, had been invited to the Charleston district for in-person conversations on Wednesday .

Eric Gallien, superintendent of Racine Unified School District in Racine, Wis., is also a finalist and visited the district on Thursday. A third candidate who has not yet been named publicly is tentatively scheduled for a Tuesday visit to the countywide system that serves some 49,000 students in 88 schools and special programs in a mix of urban, suburban and rural communities.

Earlier this spring, McNulty was one of three finalists for the Northshore School District near Seattle. That job ultimately went to the person who had been serving as the district’s interim leader.

McNulty said at the time that the Washington state job was a special opportunity and not dissatisfaction with what he called “amazing work” in the Pulaski County Special system.

“I still love working with the county,” he said at that time. “We have some really good people who care for kids, and we are getting some great achievement results right now despite the pandemic.”

McNulty attended high school and college in nearby Oregon and began his teaching career in another Washington state school district. He has a son who lives a short distance from the Northshore district.