Tuesday’s called meeting of the Selma City School Board provided a unique setting to three search firms called to the council to make proposals on handling the search for the system’s next superintendent of education.

With board members around a table in the system’s central office, presenters not only had to face the scrutinizing glances of the elected officials, but also those of a group of concerned parents and residents, committed to stopping the search process and immediately reinstating fired superintendent of education Dr. Donald Jefferson.

“I am sure you are familiar with our situation,” board president Henry Hicks Sr., asked as each of the groups began their presentations. The question offered just a snapshot to those groups of the pending legal action filed by Jefferson against the board in Dallas County Circuit Court.

For the most part, each group was familiar with the litigation and how future court decisions could possibly delay, change or even stop the need for a search firm.

According to board attorney Katy Campbell, the board sent out requests for proposals from a number of firms throughout the region, receiving just three back.

One group, based in Louisiana, McPherson & Jacobson, LLC., is the same firm hired in 2008 by the board that resulted in the hiring of former superintendent Austin Obasohan.

Obasohan left the school system in June 2010 for the Duplin County, N.C. school system.

The other two groups have not represented Selma in any past search, but did have lists of references and details of past successes.