EBR School Board Extends Hiring Deadline, Schedules Next Superintendent Selection for July 24 • Unfiltered with Kiran

BATON ROUGE — Members of the East Baton Rouge School Board say they will vote Wednesday, July 24, to hire a new superintendent. That comes after a nearly two-year search that saw the board consider several candidates.

During a special meeting on Tuesday, the board laid out procedures for moving forward with the vote and also extended the hiring deadline, which had been set to expire at midnight on Wednesday.

The board has also extended the deadline for receiving new or existing applications until Wednesday afternoon.

When a new superintendent is hired, five of the nine board members must agree on who that person is. Each board member gets to select their top three candidates, and the three candidates with the most votes advance to the final interviews, which also take place on Wednesday.

“There’s nothing perfect about what we’ve done in this (hiring process),” District 6 Board Member Nathan Rust told his fellow board members. “We have to use our judgment on what gets us to a decision point tomorrow that at least five board members can live with.”

District 2 board member Dadrius Lanus agreed.

“We have all our marching orders. Let’s do this. This is what our community wants. This is what our community needs. This is what our students need.”

During public comment, Eurica Gaston expressed her frustrations with the unclear hiring process, especially given the amount of time the board spent interviewing other candidates for the headmaster position.

“I don’t know how you haven’t found a principal in six months, but you’re going to find one tomorrow. When you have new candidates, that’s less than 24 hours to consider these new people, who I’m assuming you’ve never interviewed before, so I don’t know how that would be a good principal for the children of this school district,” Gaston said. “If you already know who you’re going to hire, do it. Don’t keep wasting our time, because we don’t need to.”

Interviews for candidates will begin at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, followed by another special “nomination meeting” and a press conference.

Interim Superintendent Adam Smith has served as the district’s top leader since the board voted not to renew former superintendent Sito Narcisse’s contract last winter. Four board members sent a letter last week explaining why they felt Smith was not the right candidate for the struggling district at this time.

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