MSCS board to publicly interview 5 for superintendent job
In early November, Memphis-shelby County Schools revealed that there were 21 strong contenders from seven states competing for its open superintendent post and that Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates was conducting interviews.
Now, the search firm has whittled the applicants down to five finalists, which MSCS board members are poised to interview Friday. And after the previous superintendent search was beset with controversy and public distrust, the board’s search co-chairs — Joyce Dorse Coleman and Stephanie Love — are looking to ensure that this process involves the community and focuses on transparency.
“When Commissioner Love and I took over, we said that we would be transparent, with everything that we do, and this is our transparency,” she told The Commercial Appeal. “We involve the community, and that’s something they’ve asked for all along — to be involved.”
The five finalists are slated to be presented to the board during a public event at 8 a.m. on Friday in the Teaching and Learning Academy, located at 2485 Union Ave. The board members will then interview each finalist for an hour to an hour-and-fifteen minutes, and use a rubric — which is expected to be made public — to score them. These scores will be used to narrow the field to three finalists, who are set to be announced to the board and public on Tuesday.
Community members attending the interviews on Friday are also expected to receive copies of the rubric, and they’ll be able to provide their own scores, which will be collected and reviewed. According to Coleman, these scores won’t be used to bring the number of finalists down to three, as the board members’ scores will, but they could carry at least some weight.
“We’re going to review the scores that the public gives, and if we’ve got somebody that’s close to each other, in the voting, we could look at the votes from the public,” she said. “But the public votes will not be counted.”
After the top three candidates are unveiled on Tuesday, the board will break for the holidays, then resume the selection process. Coleman maintained that the plan is to continue engaging the community as it prepares to pick the district's next leader, and the goal is for a superintendent to be announced in January or February and begin on or before July 1.
The scheduled interviews come over seven months after board leaders paused the superintendent search, and about four-and-a-half months after they relaunched it. Coleman, for her part, is excited about Friday — and ready to select the next leader.
“This has been a long process,” she said. “It's been mind-boggling some days and some days it's been very rewarding. But it's time. It's time for us to go on and move forward as we have stated, and get a permanent superintendent for our babies.”