Superintendent search is on

• By CHARLES LUSSIER
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Sep 14, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Forget hurricanes. The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board is moving forward quickly with the process of selecting who will replace Superintendent Charlotte Placide.

On Monday, the School Board, starting at 5 p.m., plans to hear presentations from four superintendent search firms and then decide whether to pick one of these firms or go it alone and conduct its own search.

The School Board already has canceled several meetings because of Hurricane Gustav and its aftermath. Indeed, the School Board Office, lost electrical power Friday as Hurricane Ike passed through. If it still lacks power Monday night, Board President Jerry Arbour said, he probably will cancel that night’s meeting as well, but he hopes not to have to do that.

“We’ve got people coming in from all over the country,” Arbour said.

Arbour acknowledged that many in Baton Rouge also still have power outages — he, too lost power for several days —  but said that the board needs to get moving on its superintendent search.

A special board committee set up by Arbour has narrowed a list of 29 search firms to the four set to present Monday:

• Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates.
• McPherson and Jacobson.
• PROACT Search.
• Ray and Associates.

Hazard, Young, Attea conducted the 2004 search that led to hiring Placide, and PROACT conducted the search that led to the 2005 hiring of Chief Academic Officer Bob Stockwell, who resigned in May.

Placide, however, was not a finalist in the 2004 search —  she pulled out just before the three finalists were chosen by the search firm. She was chosen only after the board rejected those finalists.

Placide plans to retire at the end of June and the board has been sharply divided on how best to replace her.

Several board members and teacher unions favor giving special consideration to local candidates for the job and are concerned that a big search firm would mean that the school system might end up with someone with little connection to the community.

Other board members, backed by some business and community groups, favor someone, likely an outsider, who would shake things up and be more receptive to charter schools and other forms of school choice.

“I think it’s a big expense when there are so many people here who could do the job,” said Carole White, president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Association of Educators.