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On Tuesday night, Selma City Schools had their monthly board meeting that consisted of an open discussion about their monthly financial report and their bank reconciliations among other board business including the announcement of the five finalists, who met all the qualifications of the Alabama Association of School Boards and the Selma City School System.

The five finalists announced Tuesday night out of the 30 applicants that applied were Dr. Elgin Dixon, who is from Dublin, Georgia, Dr. Titus M. Hines, who is from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, Dr. Davion Lewis, who is from South Bend, Indiana, Dr. David Scott, who is from Tuscaloosa and Taurus Smith, who is a local resident presenting us well right here at home. 

Lead Searcher and consultant Susan Salter told the Selma Times Journal in November that “no one candidate chosen is going to have every single quality that the system is looking for, but the board’s job will be to review these applications , these finalists thoroughly and to ask questions that will help them identify the candidate that has and is the best match for working  with the board, the system employees and to work with the community.

“I think that several of them, most of them brought a good array of experience within public education,” Salter said. There’s a teacher, an administrator, there is someone with a counseling background, there are people that have been principals and assistant principals or both and they all have been in the central office, except one and she went from a principalship to working in the office of school improvement in Montgomery at the State Department of Education.”

Salter said all the finalists chosen for the position, bring in their own way a good understanding of just how local schools operate. 

“One of finalists is particularly strong in finance and operations,” Salter said. “One of the finalists is the director of curriculum and instruction for a large system and has spent years before working over the professional development program for the teachers in his school system. We got a really good mix of people with the skills to raise students’ achievement and all five of them have been described as relationship-oriented, which are people who would be good to build new relationships between the school system and the community.”

Salter said the next steps for the Selma City School Board and the School Board Chairman Mr. Johnny Moss,III is to contact the finalists to tell them the good news and get interviews scheduled  and pick the best suitable days for all members of the board to meet with the candidates individually show them around the school and provide a windshield tour of the community, while grabbing lunch along the way. 

“After lunch, the final board member will be taken to the mayor, county commission, the chair, the chamber leadership and what it does is give the board a good opportunity to see how each of these candidates interacts with their key stakeholders to understand are they asking good questions? Are they listening to people? Are they frozen solid and not doing well in their interactions? All of those things matter, and it will give them also, a good opportunity for casual observations.”

Salter said after those steps within the process are done, the board alongside the final candidate chosen, will come back together for a formal public interview that will last for an hour. 

Salter said those who are one day interested in taken the footsteps as the five finalists has, should understand that it’s crucial that they get a variety of experiences, and said their team fills very strongly that the candidate should also have experience working at the building level and at the central office or the state level.

“Because if you haven’t worked outside of a school building, you’ve never had the experience of trying to juggle competing needs of schools within the system in whatever area that you are over, so it can give you a much better appreciation and better understanding of the complexity of this work.”

Salter said being a school superintendent in 2025 is a very complex job and those who are thinking about the job in the near future should have strong financials skills, be a strong leader, be able to build consensus, build community and work with a board that comes from all over while having great management skills of a $30 million dollar budget including five campuses with 2300 kids and hundreds of employees.