Residents make most of final session

The public has spoken. The application deadline is next week. And then the Burke County Board of Education will be two steps closer to finding a superintendent.

The board’s superintendent search committee held its fourth and final public input session Tuesday designed to give stakeholders a chance to share with the board characteristics they want in the person who will take the helm of the school system.

The turnout at Tuesday’s meeting was as large as the other three meetings combined as nearly 30 people and all of the school board members met in the media center of Heritage Middle School.

R.L. Icard, school board member and chair of the committee, has compiled a long list of qualifications and characteristics from the four sessions.

The previous lists included a winner, someone who is vested and active in the community and a visionary.

Characteristics mentioned again Tuesday were moral and ethical qualities, someone who will make Burke County competitive with home schooling and charter schools, a person with experience in the classroom teaching and in schools as a principal, an excellent communicator and someone who is able to build a relationship with the county commissioners who supply local funding to the schools.

Nancy Ferguson Brown, a retired dental hygienist who worked for 30 years in the school system and a volunteer at the Good Samaritan Clinic, wants a superintendent who puts the health of students as a high priority.

Teacher Alicia Holden said she wants the person to be able to keep the positive vibes rolling. She said she no longer feels the “doom and gloom” she has felt in the past in going to teach. She now has an “extra pep in her step,” and would like for that to continue.

In addition to adding to the list to help with the superintendent search, conversations also centered on the contract and the importance of a superintendent being comfortable with the school board and the relationship members have with each other.

A suggestion at a previous meeting was to only offer a two-year contract. School board members said that the number of years may not be as important as the buy-out clause.

The school board has bought out the last two superintendents, one was bought out one year early and the other two years early.

Former school principal and county commissioner Trossie Wall said he would like for the superintendent to move his family here and feels he or she could not be successful in Burke County without making his or her family a part of the community, too.

Like the Feb. 7 input session at Freedom High School, part of Tuesday’s session focused on the future and finding a superintendent who can provide an innovative education system in Burke County that keeps up with technology and caters to the needs of all students.

Some of the qualities the public voiced during the four sessions were contradictory.

Some want an insider, while others say the previous location of the next superintendent doesn’t matter.

Some want a superintendent with previous management experience while others want someone who hasn’t been out of the classroom trenches too long.

Some want a person who can pull the system into the future while others want the person to be able to push teachers and students to be their best.

In addition to qualities and characteristics, the board also received from the public recommendations on the hiring process.

They include thoroughly vetting the candidates, involving teachers and staff in the interviews and hosting a public reception for the final four candidates.

The application deadline is Feb. 29 and the school board would like to fill the position by July 1, though school board member Randy Burns reiterated and others echoed a concern about not rushing the process and settling for someone who is not a good fit.

In addition to the public input sessions, the search committee plans to offer an online survey.

The committee’s next meeting is 6 p.m. March 12 at the Olive Hill Resource Center on West Concord Street.

At that meeting the committee plans to discuss the list it has gathered and the next steps.