The Selma City School Board is inching closer to selecting its next superintendent.

The board discussed the ongoing search Thursday during its regularly scheduled monthly work session. While providing board attorney Katy Campbell with suggestions on general qualifications, board member Udo Ufomadu suggested that the hired superintendent be required to enroll any child he or she has in a Selma City school, if they are eligible to attend.

“If the superintendent is supposed to have students be in our school system, and they’re not in our school system, what message does that send?” Ufomadu said. “We have to be careful here.”

Ufomadu explained how a superintendent with children attending a school outside of the system makes it seem as if the central office employee doesn’t have faith in the system he or she is leading.

“If you’re going in a right direction and confident about what you’re doing, you will want your kids to be a part of it,” Ufomadu said.

President Henry Hicks said Ufomadu brought up a good point that he too has considered and presented in a state meeting.

“They said that’s not something you can force people to do,” Hicks said. “They have a right to send their kids where they want to send them.”

Acting Selma Superintendent of Education Larry DiChiara said the requirement is common among school systems.

DiChiara said he personally feels it’s best for the superintendent to be invested to the community by living in the city and having his or her children enrolled in the Selma City School System, but it shouldn’t but required of him or her.

Like Alabama Association of School Boards representative James Wright, DiChiara said the board should limit the amount of restrictions they include in the job posting.

“Dr. Wright is just trying to warn you to be careful about being too restrictive, because your pool [can get smaller,]” state intervention leader DiChiara said. “We, right now, want your pool to be as big as possible, so you can have as many choices as possible. If we can give you some words of wisdom one way or the other to increase that pool, we’re going to try to do that.”

DiChiara said people who the board may consider great candidates for the position might hesitate to apply if they know that they are obligated to have their children involved in the school district.

“Let’s say they’re from Montgomery, and they don’t want to uproot their children and they don’t want to uproot their family,” DiChiara said. “Then you can still get yourself a really good superintendent.”

The goal is to have the final selection for the position made in March, at the latest, with the new superintendent to be on the job by June 1, according to DiChiara.

The board will vote on general qualifications and the proposed negotiable salary during the next board meeting, which will be Tuesday, Jan. 13 at the Selma High School library on Broad Street starting at 6 p.m.