Keith Sutton appointed Acting Superintendent of Warren School
Wake County School Board Member Keith Sutton asks a question as the Wake County Board of Commissioners and Wake County School Board have a joint meeting at the Chamber of Commerce offices in downtown Raleigh, NC March 21, 2013.
Wake County School Board Chairman Keith Sutton has been hired to be the acting superintendent of Warren County Schools.
The Warren County School Board voted Tuesday night to make Sutton the temporary superintendent from July 1 to December 31. Sutton is an education consultant and long-time school board member, but not a professional educator.
But Sutton said he recently completed a nine-month Urban Superintendents Academy course offered by AASA, the Association of School Superintendents. Sutton also said his years of experience in North Carolina’s largest school district, which has 160,000 students, will help him in Warren County.
Located approximately 55 miles north of Raleigh, Warren County has 1,700 students.
“Going from governance to administration are two different things,†Sutton said in an interview Wednesday. “It’s not necessarily a seamless transition, but I want to put myself in a position where I can learn more about the day-to-day management of a district.”
Sutton has said he will not resign from the Wake School Board unless he offers the permanent position of Warren County Superintendent.
Long-time school board member
Sutton was appointed to the Wake School Board in 2009. He was most recently re-elected in 2020. He unsuccessfully ran for the Democratic nomination for public school principal last year.
Among the issues he has focused on in Wake are reducing school suspensions and ensuring racial equity in schools.
The Raleigh resident is an education innovation consultant at FocusED, LLC, a company he created in 2017 to help organizations improve and transform education. Previously, he was Director of Excellence for BEST NC, an education-focused business coalition.
Sutton’s background also includes being executive director of the state NAACP and president of the Triangle Urban League. He worked in the campaigns of former US Representative Eva Clayton and former Governor Bev Perdue.
“I think I’ve done a lot in my 11 years as a board member and made an impact in Wake County,†Sutton said. “I think there are other ways I can have a significant impact on people’s lives.”