EBR School Board chooses single finalist
The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board deadlocked for hours Wednesday night on whom to name as superintendent finalists before selecting Samuel King, superintendent of Rockdale County (Ga.) public schools near Atlanta as the lone finalist.
The board plans to ask King back for a second interview. The board also reserves the right to visit King’s school district east of Atlanta based in the town of Conyers.
King has served as Rockdale County superintendent for almost seven years and is the 2011 superintendent of the year for the state of Georgia. The school system though only has about 16,000 students, compared with 43,000 students who enrolled in East Baton Rouge Parish.
If chosen, King would replace John Dilworth as East Baton Rouge Parish superintendent. Dilworth is leaving June 30 when his three-year contract expires.
The board had originally planned to name three finalists from a group of six semifinalists.
Wednesday night’s deadlock showed divisions on the board evident since voters in 2010 elected six new members to the board but kept five incumbents.
King’s landing a spot as a finalist came after a three-hour closed session, and a series of close but inconclusive votes.
Finally, the board did a series of roll call votes on four candidates, including King, but also including Herman Brister, chief academic officer for the parish school system; Marie Pitre-Martin, director of K-12 curriculum and instruction for the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction; and Elliot Smalley, deputy of strategy and communications for the county school district in Charleston, S.C.
Brister, Pitre-Martin and Smalley all got five votes, but needed six votes to become a finalist under the motion that was made by Board Vice President Tarvald Smith.
King ended up with 10 votes.
Board member Craig Freeman voted against King as well as the other semifinalists. He also voted no against most of the other motions made Wednesday night.
Freeman said none of the top candidates were qualified to run this school system and turn it around. He suggested instead reopening the national search.
“The era of settling in East Baton Rouge Parish is over; it’s over,” Freeman said.
The School Board meeting began at 5 p.m. Wednesday, and things quickly devolved into a procedural mess with a flurry of motions promoting different candidates being offered and failing to garner the minimum six of 11 votes.
After failing to settle on finalists, the School Board went into closed session for about three hours to try to debate the matter.
Less than 30 minutes into that discussion, an upset board member, Connie Bernard, walked out and said she did not want to talk about why, leaving just 10 board members in the closed session. She returned about an hour later, saying she needed to take a “timeout.”
The time in Conference Room A did not help. The divide continued with no motion earning the necessary six votes.
By the end of the meeting, the list of six semifinalists had shrunk to four.
Board President Barbara Freiberg began the meeting with the announcement that Tisha Edwards, chief of staff for Baltimore public schools, had withdrawn her name from consideration.
Near the end of the meeting, Freiberg also announced that Kelt Cooper, superintendent of schools in Del Rio, Texas, had withdrawn from consideration.
The plan at the beginning of the meeting had been to go behind closed doors, or “executive session.” Board member Randy Lamana made a motion to go into executive session, but board member Jerry Arbour sought to prevent that.
Instead, Arbour offered a substitute motion listing his three preferred finalists: Brister, King and Pitre-Martin.
Arbour’s motion failed 5-6.
Lamana’s original motion was then voted on. It too fell short, 5-5; it required eight votes to pass.
Then Freeman suggested reopening the search but no one would second his motion, so it died as well.
Then Bernard listed her three preferred finalists. That list included King and Pitre-Martin, but included a new name, Smalley. Smalley is a nontraditional candidate who has never taught in a classroom or served as a school principal.
That made board member Vereta Lee upset. Addressing Bernard, Lee asked a question.
“I want to know why my colleague dislikes Dr. Brister so much,” she asked.
“That is out of line,” Freiberg interceded, shutting Lee down.
Smith suggested going back to the original motion: To go into closed session after all. He said the board needed to talk in private before things got too ugly in public, and his motion passed.
“I can see where things are going,” he said.
When the board came back, the deadlock continued.
Audience members were confused.
“Is what you all saying that Dr. King is going to be our next superintendent?” asked Pearl Porter, a local education activist.
“No, that’s not necessarily what we’re saying,” Freeman responded.
Freeman said bringing King back for a second interview will allow the community to meet and vet him.
“For us to say something today would be to change the promise we made to the community,” he said.
Carnell Washington, president of the East Baton Rouge Federation of Teachers, was flabbergasted by the proceedings.
“I’m almost getting the impression that some of you don’t know what you’re doing,” Washington said. “I hate to say that because I respect all of you.”
He said Wednesday’s meeting would damage the prospects of getting a good superintendent.
“Who would come after all of that?” he asked. “Who would stay after all that?”