The five leading candidates for superintendent of schools for East Baton Rouge Parish will sit for virtual interviews in early May rather than coming to Baton Rouge in person as originally planned.
The parish School Board voted unanimously Tuesday night for virtual interviews. The board itself was meeting virtually for the first time, taking advantage of Gov. John Bel Edwards' March 14 relaxation of the state’s open meeting laws as way to limit the spread of the new coronavirus.
All nine board members participated Tuesday, all from their respective homes.
Two local and three out-of-town educators have made the cut in the hunt for the next school superintendent for East Baton Rouge Parish and wil…
The five educators who will sit for virtual interviews are Leslie Brown, Adam Smith, Quentina Timoll, Nakia Towns and Marshall Tuck. Smith and Timoll are top administrators with the school system, while Brown, Towns and Tuck are out-of-state educators. The board on March 5 picked them out of a group of 24 applicants.
They are vying to replace Warren Drake, who is set to retire June 30 after five years at the helm. Drake has agreed to stay past that date, if necessary, until the board settles on his replacement.
The candidate interviews were originally scheduled for March 23 and 24 and then were postponed until late April. Now they will occur during the first full week of May.
“The candidates are available and have expressed the willingness to meet with you virtually on the week of May 4,” said James Guerra, whose firm JG Consulting is overseeing the superintendent search.
The East Baton Rouge Parish School has canceled its meeting this Thursday night and is postponing for at least a month plans to interview five…
After the interviews, which will last 90 minutes each, the board plans to again narrow this field and hold a final round of interviews, which may or may not be in person.
Board members Connie Bernard and Dawn Collins said they'd prefer in-person interviews for the final round, even if it means waiting a bit.
“I really would like to see some strong community engagement,” Collins said. “A virtual setting would make that extremely difficult.”
Board member Dadrius Lanus opposed a delay and said virtual meetings will likely be a necessity given the gravity of the coronavirus crisis.
“I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of this thing yet,” Lanus said.
The Advocate has posted online the applications of all the applicants.
East Baton Rouge has more than 80 schools, 10 of them charter schools, that educate collectively more than 41,000 children.
While board members were shown on video Thursday from their homes, members of the public were not allowed to speak. Instead, they submitted written comments that were read into the record. A copy of the video of the meeting was .
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The School Board on Tuesday also heard an update from Superintendent Drake on the status of the school system’s distance learning efforts, particularly upgrading home technology for students since schools closed March 13.
While some school districts quickly sent home school-owned computing devices, the East Baton Rouge Parish school system held onto more than 30,000 Chromebooks. Last week, school officials reversed course after Gov. Edwards extended school closures through the end of the school year.
Drake said about 2,000 of those Chromebooks have been handed out in the past two days and that graduating seniors are the highest priority. He noted a recent parent survey in which about 85% parents reported having internet at home, a higher number than school officials were thinking. To cover home internet for those who don’t have it, the school system is getting donations from companies and charitable foundations.
Drake said expanded distance learning, including virtual classes, will go live the week of May 4 and will continue into the summer.
“We’re going to work the bugs out of that and be ready for the summer program,” Drake said.
