Board eyes superintendent applicants
By Phyllis Moore
Published in News on April 6, 2015 1:46 PM
The Wayne County Board of Education completed its interviews for the district's top spot late Friday afternoon, with members saying they are confident in the choices before them.
The board spent two days in closed session interviewing candidates for superintendent of Wayne County Public Schools.
Former superintendent Dr. Steven Taylor had announced his retirement effective Dec. 1, 2014. In late November, Dr. Sandra McCullen, associate superintendent for curriculum and instruction, was named interim superintendent, through June 30.
The search for a replacement drew more than two dozen applicants by the Feb. 28 deadline, which have since been winnowed down to eight finalists. The board scheduled two-hour interviews, spread out over Wednesday and Friday of last week.
Six of the seven members were present when the day wrapped up -- Dr. Dwight Cannon had announced earlier in the week he would not be there or Skype in because it was Good Friday.
"I think we went through a very good process," board member Pat Burden said. "We got information added to what we had in the applications.
"I think the questions were good. I think the additional comments made gave us a lot of information to review and prepare to make our decision."
Board members Arnold Flowers and Rick Pridgen agreed.
"I feel like we're well on our way to choosing the right superintendent for our school system," Pridgen said.
"I think our county can rest easy that we'll find a good superintendent," board member Eddie Radford added.
Board member Jennifer Strickland said she believed everyone they had spoken with was "incredibly qualified" and brought attributes that would help Wayne County move in the right direction.
Board Chairman Chris West thanked the board members for devoting their time to the search, which began with 31 applicants.
"It's been an ongoing process, and it's not been real easy, because to be quite honest with you, we don't have any guarantees or assurances that one of the ones that we eliminated of the original, they may go on to be the best superintendent in the nation," he said. "Who knows? We don't know, we will never know that. We can't second-guess what we've done.
"I think we've done the best that we could do with the information that we had in front of us, and I don't think that our process was wrong or bad."
West said he felt they had eight great applicants and "eight great interviews." And while each brought something different to the table, they also provided a good selection.
"We've got choices. And hopefully we will narrow this down to maybe three or four, we haven't decided yet. We will work on that when we come back from Easter," he said. "And we'll continue the interview process at that point in time. Hopefully within the next 30 days we'll have a candidate to present to Wayne County as our choice."
West said he was confident in the choices before them and suggested the best approach moving forward will be a team effort.
"What we need to do as a board collectively is to work together to support whomever the new candidate is in our voting process," he said. "I want them to feel welcome, and I don't want them to feel like they're coming to a situation that's not a good situation.
"To be quite honest with you, even if we offer them the job, that doesn't mean they have to take it. They're going to look at the parameters of what goes on here. We need to continue to be professional in our search and in our choice."