No school chief named
Board delays vote; Ga. candidate pulls out
With several audience members chanting “recall,” the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board narrowly rejected promoting the district’s No. 2 official Wednesday to fill the shoes of its departing superintendent for the next few months.
Instead, the School Board voted 6-5 to delay that decision until its Feb. 16 regular meeting in hopes of finding other possible interim leaders.
Wednesday was yet another rejection for Chief Academic Officer Herman Brister Sr., who sought unsuccessfully in 2009 then again this year, to become superintendent.
Meanwhile, the lone remaining finalist from among six semifinalists , Samuel King, superintendent in Rockdale County, Ga., withdrew his name from consideration just hours before the School Board met Wednesday night, citing “discussions with his family.”
School Board President Barbara Freiberg, who announced King’s withdrawal as the meeting began, said the board has to reopen the search.
“He wasn’t told he had six votes to go back out?” asked board member Vereta Lee, implying King was told he did not have the votes to continue.
“Not by me,” Freiberg responded.
King’s public school district, which is smaller than East Baton Rouge’s, is east of Atlanta.
After the meeting, Freiberg said she had a phone call with King at 1 p.m. Wednesday when she said he told her he was withdrawing.
She denied again she had pushed him out in that conversation, either by asking him to withdraw or by telling him that he no longer had enough support to win the job.
Superintendent John Dilworth announced nine months ago that he would not stay past his three-year contract which ends June 30.
On Friday, he said Feb. 24 would be his last day, citing unspecified “health concerns.”
Neither Dilworth nor Brister attended the meeting Wednesday.
The School Board’s inability to settle on an interim leader raises the prospect that Louisiana’s second-largest public-school system may not have a leader on Feb. 25.
And King’s withdrawal, and the divisions that have emerged among board members, have raised doubts the board will have much luck finding someone of high caliber to replace Dilworth when his contract ends July 1, or if he resigns earlier.
The scenes at Wednesday’s meeting will not help the renewed recruiting process.
Joe Jenkins, a graduate of Scotlandville High School and prominent alumnus of that school, watched most of the meeting before speaking. He questioned who will take the job now.
“The only reason Dr. Brister would take this is because he’s here,” Jenkins said. “But anybody of his qualifications, you’re not going to get to apply for this job, because this is a monkey show. This is truly a monkey show.”
Audience members frequently shouted down Freiberg and other board members when they spoke, and board members challenged each other. .
Board member Connie Bernard urged her colleagues early on to refrain from personal attacks, saying it showed a lack of decorum.
After the meeting, she said the situation grew much worse by the end of the night, drifting into “the territory of rudeness.”
As the meeting was ending, Freiberg tried to placate the audience.
“I just wanted to remind everyone that everyone up here cares about the children,” Freiberg said, before she got shorted by boos.
“That’s not true,” chimed in Lee, the most vocal supporter of Brister on the board.
Longstanding divisions appear to have hardened.
Five board members once again came out for Brister on Wednesday, just as they did Jan. 25, when the board rejected him as a finalist for the job. Those board members are Lee, Jerry Arbour, Randy Lamana, Kenyetta Nelson-Smith and Tarvald Smith.
Six board members want someone new to run the school system. They are Bernard, Freiberg, Jill Dyason, Craig Freeman, David Tatman and Evelyn Ware-Jackson. Five of those six are newly elected.
After the meeting, Ware-Jackson said no one has told her who’s behind a possible effort to recall her, but she has gotten many calls of support since the news broke.
She also said she has gotten many calls in recent weeks from school system employees who urged her not to make Brister superintendent but will not come out publicly for fear of losing their jobs.
Former School Board member W.T. Winfield, whose re-election bid Freeman defeated in 2010, warned board members Wednesday that voters may take revenge at the polls, voting down tax propositions, if the board does not change course and pick Brister.
Brister’s candidacy, though, is on hold for the moment.
The board cannot bring his name up for interim superintendent for 60 days under board rules, unless one of the members who voted against him asks the board to reconsider.
Lamont Cole, a former middle-school principal who works for a charter school in Baton Rouge, said he supports Brister, but said the board needs to unite behind someone who can work to make the best of Gov. Bobby Jindal’s education agenda.
“I think you need to remove him from the situation and do what’s right for our community,” Cole said. “If he were talking to me, he’d say, ‘Cole, it’s not about me. It’s bigger than me.’”