The DeKalb County School Board is expected to offer a contract to superintendent finalist R. Stephen Green at a special meeting Thursday, according to a press release from DeKalb County Schools sent late Tuesday.
Green, currently the superintendent of Kansas City Public Schools in Missouri, was announced as the district’s sole finalist for the top job on May 13, but could not be offered a contract for 14 days.
He told reporters last week that he applied for the DeKalb job in late March. He was declared a semifinalist after 120 candidates were whittled down to eight by the district’s board of education and a Community Liaison Committee, a group of parents and county residents.
Green said the board notified him that he would be the sole finalist shortly after the board interviewed the remaining candidates May 1 and 2 at the Sheraton Atlanta Airport Hotel.
Green is in the middle of a five-year contract with Kansas City, which would keep him there until June 2018. He had started with the district in August 2011 as interim superintendent and took the permanent post in 2012.
Green, if hired, would take over a district nearly seven times the size of the one he’s leaving. While the districts are different in size, their demographic make-up and some of the issues are the same. Officials from Kansas City Public Schools said a focus on student progress and making district employees feel heard while in Kansas City helped improve test scores and boost morale. Student enrollment for this year was up slightly.
