Three women from outside Georgia, each a seasoned educator, were named Tuesday as superintendent finalists for Atlanta Public Schools.
The candidates, chosen from among five people interviewed privately Friday and Saturday by the school board, are Cheryl L. H. Atkinson, superintendent of Lorain City Public Schools in Ohio; Barbara M. Jenkins, deputy superintendent of schools in Orange County, Fla., and Bonita Coleman-Potter, deputy superintendent of Prince George's County Public Schools in Maryland.
Board members initially planned to make a decision Saturday, but waited to allow for more discussion among members about the candidates.
“We know that picking the right candidate for our next superintendent is the board’s most important job," board Chairman Khaatim Sherrer El said in a prepared statement. "We believe that we will find the candidate who possesses the qualifications and experience to take the helm of APS and lead us to the next level in educational excellence.”
While all three candidates have deep education experience, they are faced with taking over a turbulent situation. The board as recently as Monday split acrimoniously into factions on a key vote to decide their future leadership. Members have already spent five months trying to right governance issues that put them on probation with the district's accrediting agency. The agency's head warned them early on that it would not tolerate a split vote to hire a new leader.
That's on top of a looming leadership void as well as an ongoing criminal investigation of alleged cheating on student achievement tests.
"Yes, I'm concerned candidates will decide they don't want to take on Atlanta Public Schools because of the situation with the board," said Cynthia Briscoe Brown, co-president of the North Atlanta Parents for Public Schools advocacy group. "But I continue to hope the board can keep all of the different aspects of its job moving forward. I wish we were already past the board disputes. But we're not. Any superintendent is going to have to take that situation as they find it."
The board's search firm, Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, said Tuesday it recruited more than 70 people for the job, a higher turnout than expected. There also have been notable superintendent vacancies nationwide, among them Newark, N.J., Louisville, Ky., and most recently Detroit and Charlotte.
Firm representatives have said they fully represented the district's issues, noting that anyone with access to the Internet would have likely done his or her own research.
Going into the interviews, El said members had no guarantee that candidates identified to the board would ultimately be a good fit for the job. Even with the names of the three finalists now public, more hard work remains.
Each of the finalists will meet Atlanta parents and residents at some point over the next several weeks, though the board did not set firm dates. The board, meanwhile, will prepare for more interviews with the candidates. Some members have asked to talk about having public screening committees; a fuller discussion on that topic and other related issues is expected at the board's next meeting on Monday.
The state requires a 14-day waiting period between when the board names a finalist and makes an official hire. That pegs June 28 as the first day the Atlanta board could hire any of those named Tuesday, though it is not clear the board wants to move that quickly. The process can seem like a whirlwind. It also has pitfalls.
Just last March, neighboring DeKalb County introduced three schools superintendent finalists, only to have each drop out of consideration. Among them was DeKalb's top pick, who withdrew after information was leaked about her contract negotiation, leaving DeKalb's search in tatters.
Atlanta officials face other worries. With Superintendent Beverly Hall departing June 30, board members know they will need an interim leader until Hall's replacement takes over. Who the interim leader will be, and how long he or she will hold the job, is unclear.
The interim superintendent's role, however, will be important: It likely will be his or her responsibility to help the board deal with the conclusion of a 10-month state probe into tampering on student achievement tests, which is expected to be released as soon as this month. In a videotaped farewell address to district employees, Hall acknowledged educators cheated and said the findings of the criminal investigation will be "alarming."
Additionally, the school district's accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, placed the board on probation in January because of poor governance.
The board faces a state-imposed deadline of July 1 to at least show some improvement. It faces a Sept. 30 deadline imposed by the agency to show substantial improvement or face the loss of accreditation.
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