LRSD chief interviews finish

Board to discuss candidates next week, weigh next step

The Little Rock School Board on Wednesday concluded initial interviews of four candidates seeking the superintendent’s job in the 21,000-student school system.

School Board President Greg Adams said the board and candidate meetings — held online in executive session over the course of two evenings — were all “productive conversations” and that none of the candidates have withdrawn from consideration.

The board’s next step, Adams said, is to meet at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss the interviews. The board could decide Tuesday or at the board’s April 14 meeting on how to proceed with the search, Adams has said.

Those future steps could include inviting one or more of the candidates for a second interview that would be in-person in Little Rock.

The board is in the process of selecting a replacement for Superintendent Mike Poore, 60, who has said he will retire at the end of June, concluding six years as the Little Rock School District’s chief executive.

Lloyd Jackson, assistant superintendent of school leadership since July 2019 in the Kansas City, Mo., school system, was the first to be interviewed Wednesday. He was deputy superintendent in 2017-19 in the Hot Springs School District, where he previously was a high school principal.

The board followed that with an interview of George “Eric” Thomas. Thomas is a national consultant for the University of Virginia’s Partnership for Leaders in Education and a former deputy superintendent/chief turnaround officer from 2017 to 2020 for the Georgia Board of Education.

Stephanie Jones, chief officer for the Office of Diverse Learner Supports and Services for the 355,000-student Chicago Public Schools since August 2019, was interviewed Tuesday night by the Little Rock board, as was Jermall Wright.

Wright is superintendent of schools since July 2019 for the Mississippi Achievement School District, an arm of the Mississippi Board of Education. As such, Wright oversees the Yazoo City and Humphreys County school systems.

BWP & Associates of Libertyville, Ill., is facilitating the superintendent search for the board.

Debra Hill, BWP & Associates’ lead consultant

for the Little Rock search, told the board earlier this month that the recommended candidates are those who

best matched — by at least 80percent — the qualifications and characteristics that Little Rock board members, district employees and community members said they wanted in the district’s chief executive.