By Tyra Jackson

The Selma Times-Journal

The application deadline for the Selma City Schools’ superintendent position has ended, and the field is about to be narrowed.

On Tuesday, the Alabama Association of School Boards will present a list of the top five finalists to the Selma City Schools Board of Education. The board will then interview and make its final decision on the next superintendent. Susan Salter, Director of Leadership Development of the Alabama Association of School Boards, said the list of candidates is still being narrowed down.

“We’re excited. We think it’s a good pool,” Salter said. “We feel like we have a good strong list of finalists. The board is going to find a lot to like in the list of candidates that we bring them.”

The board will get to know the finalists a bit more during a public interview scheduled the week of March 9. The originally scheduled board interviews were moved a week back because of the Bridge Crossing Jubilee.

Salter said four veteran educators with administration experience will help select the top five candidates.

“They looked carefully at the experiences that each applicant had,” Salter said. “They looked at the community engagement results and engagement meetings we did in Selma to see what the community said would be important.”

In addition, the association sat down with each of the members of the Selma City School Board to get to know them individually. Members of the board voiced some of the same concerns and requirements expressed by the community.

“In this list of finalists that we’ll bring, nobody will have everything the board and the community said they wanted,” Salter said. “Each candidate will have a combination of some of those traits. That’s true in any search.”

It’s not uncommon for applicants to make a few phone calls to gain information about the new district they might work in, said Acting Superintendent of Selma City Schools Larry DiChiara said.

“I’ve had at least half a dozen people who have called me personally, just to get information about the district, the financial conditions and just a lot of questions about a school district when they’re trying to decide whether to apply or not,” DiChiara said.

DiChiara said several of the candidates who asked him about the position were of high quality, but he’s unsure if any of them actually applied.

DiChiara said there is a misconception that the state takeover will end as soon as a new superintendent is named.

“The state intervention will not be over until state superintendent [Tommy Bice] believes the conditions on the ground are such that he will feel confident in turning the keys back over to the school district to drive on their own,” DiChiara said.

In past interviews with the Times-Journal, DiChiara said he would like the final selection to be made in March and for the new superintendent to be on the job by June 1.