5 make superintendent short list

ZACHARY — The Zachary Community School Board voted Thursday to invite five applicants for the district superintendent’s post to attend the first round of interviews, scheduled Sept. 25 and Sept. 26.

The board members chose to interview five after first indicating in writing whether or not they wanted to interview each of the 11 applicants. The five selected each received votes from all nine board members.

Warren Drake, the district’s first paid superintendent, retired Sept. 4 and took a job with the state Education Department.

Those invited to interview are:

• Michelle Clayton, of Zachary, an education consultant with a doctoral degree, Zachary’s director of academic accountability, curriculum and instruction from 2003 to earlier this year.
• Scott Devillier, of Oscar, the director of operations for Zachary schools who also has been an assistant principal, high school principal and supervisor of school and home relations in Zachary since the district’s creation in 200w3. He has a master’s degree.
• Patrick Jenkins, who also has a master’s in education, principal of the district’s Port Hudson Career Academy. He also has been assistant principal of Northwest Middle School and principal of Northwest Elementary and Zachary Elementary. He also served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a Louisiana Army National Guard engineering officer.
• Alonzo Luce, of Gonzales, superintendent of St. James Parish schools since 2007. He has a doctoral degree and held several positions at Istrouma Middle Magnet School.
• Phillip Burchfield, superintendent of Clinton Public Schools in Hinds County, Miss. He has a doctoral degree, and formerly served as superintendent of schools in Starkville, Miss.

A move to interview six applicants was defeated by a substitute motion, eliminating Charles Michel, of Metairie, from the interview round. He is supervisor of special education for the Lafourche Parish school system.

Also eliminated from contention were:

• Arthur Gottlieb, of Queensbury, N.Y., an adjunct professor of biology and coordinator of licensure and education at the College of St. Joseph, Rutland, Vt.
• Gregory Hutchings Jr., director of pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade initiatives for Alexandria city schools, Alexandria, Va. He was named the 2009 principal of the year by the Tennessee Association of Middle Schools.
• Deborah Moran, of Kiln, Miss., who served as superintendent of Water Valley School District in Water Valley, Miss., and worked with the Hancock County, Miss., school system from 1994 to 2010.
• Arthur Stellar Jr., of Hingham, Mass., former superintendent of schools in Taunton, Mass., and Burke County, N.C.
• Darrell Treece, superintendent of Adair County Schools, Columbia, Ky., from 2003 until his retirement this year.

Other topics before the board included:

SURPLUS FUNDS: Interim Superintendent Gordon Robertson, the district’s finance director, reported the district ended the fiscal year June 30 with an operating surplus of $3,246,085, mainly because of a nearly identical spike in sales tax collections.

Robertson said the increase raises the year’s total sales tax collections to $10.5 million, the most in the district’s history. He attributed the spike to construction at the Georgia Pacific Corp. paper mill at Port Hudson.

TRANSFERS: The board agreed to allocate $1.5 million of the operating surplus to the construction fund and $380,000 for extra instructional materials and services at the schools. The high school will get $80,000, the middle school $60,000 and elementary schools $40,000 each.