GWINNETT COUNTY Superintendent candidates surpass 50

After residents demanded a voice in choosing the next superintendent for Buford City Schools, school board members vowed to involve the public and formed a search committee. Two-thirds of its members are current or former school district or city of Buford employees.

Two pastorsand a parent who pays tuition for his child to attend school in Buford are the only members with no professional ties to the school system.

During open discussion periods at school board meetings and in interviews after a furor over racist slurs purported to have been made by former superintendent Geye Hamby, school board members vowed that the process of choosing a new school leader would be transparent.

At the September meeting, the board named Beauty Baldwin, a former Buford superintendent and the first black female school superintendent in the state, as the chair of the search committee, which has now received more than 50 applications. The committee posts are voluntary, said Gregory Jay, lawyer for the school district, after the AJC filed an open-records request. He added there is no written contract, only a verbal agreement for Baldwin and the other members.

Hambyresigned in August after being placed on administrative leave. Many residents of the small North Gwinnett city were outraged that he wasn’t fired outright.