Seven among early seekers for top job

With more than a month to go before the deadline, seven candidates already have applied to be Columbus City Schools’ next superintendent, including the leader of Akron schools, the sixthlargest district in Ohio.

Superintendent David W. James said he already has a great job with Akron Public Schools, and it would be a difficult choice to leave.

“The opportunity just arose,” James said. “I haven’t been interviewed yet. I haven’t been contacted. I’d have to see what their goals are. I think it would be a great opportunity.”

The Akron school district has about 20,000 students, and Columbus has about 50,000.

Six others also have applied to replace Columbus Superintendent Dan Good, who will resign at the end of December:

Rodney Berry, superintendent of Nottoway County Public Schools in Virginia

Portia Bonner, past superintendent of East Haven Public Schools in Connecticut

Leon Leavell, principal at Columbus City Schools’ AIMS Middle School

Ellen Solek, superintendent of Bristol Public Schools in Connecticut

Sandra Thomas, former superintendent, Country Club Hills School District 160 in suburban Chicago

Carmilla Young, superintendent of Agape Schools, a group of charter schools in Fresno, California.

After the Dec. 8 deadline for applications, Columbus school board members will get a recommendation on candidates to consider from Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates, the firm hired in September to conduct a national search to replace Good.

“Dec. 8 is a long way away,” board President Gary Baker said Wednesday. “There could be several more who could come in later in the process.”

The school board is not expected to decide on the hire until late January at the earliest, meaning the district will have an interim superintendent for at least a month, maybe longer, Baker said. One potential interim leader

with the necessary state superintendent’s certificate is John Stanford, who as deputy superintendent is Good’s No. 2, Baker said.

Baker said the interim likely will be someone already with Columbus schools because it will be a short-term assignment.

The board will then select two to four finalists from the list of recommended candidates, and will host public meetings to get feedback.

“We’ll introduce them again in some way, or give the community some way to weigh in on those finalists,” Baker said.

Some of the applicants have left their last posts after contracts weren’t renewed.

The Bristol school board didn’t renew the contract of Solek, who ran the 8,000-student system since 2012, after she received a poor performance review. The Hartford Courant wrote in September that the relationship soured after voters transformed the school board from conservative Republican to Democrat.

The Country Club Hills board put Thomas on paid administrative leave at the beginning of this school year, but wouldn’t say why, according to the Chicago Tribune newspaper. But the move came the same week that Illinois health officials discovered that asbestoscontaining floor tiles had been improperly removed inside three classrooms during a remodeling project, contaminating portions of the building, the Tribune said. The board approved a separation agreement with Thomas two weeks ago.

The East Haven board voted in May 2016 not to renew Bonner’s contract. “Unfortunately this is the life of a superintendent,” Bonner told a reporter for Shore Publishing in Connecticut.

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