By Associated Press - Saturday, April 1, 2017

GREENVILLE, Miss. (AP) - Greenville’s school board should focus on hiring a superintendent with proven experience in turning around low-performing school districts, a report says.

The document, presented to the Greenville school board by a group of citizens, advises the school board to not rely only on a search by the Mississippi School Board Association, saying the board is ultimately responsible for finding the right leader and should evaluate candidates using national standards.

The Delta Democrat-Times (https://bit.ly/2nEOLP9) reports the district is paying the association $11,750 to run the search. The school board hopes to pick two finalists, hold a public form and name a superintendent by July 1 for the 5,000-student district, which carries an F academic rating.

The board fired Superintendent Leeson Taylor last year after a video emerged of a teacher dragging a special education student by the hair across the gym floor of Greenville High School.

“This is a huge decision and should be treated as such. Over the past 10 years, Greenville Public School District has had leadership that has been unable to turn the district around,” the report states. “This has resulted in a revolving door of leadership and a school district with a designation of being in danger of state takeover.”

MacKenzie Stroh Hines, an education advocate, presented the 21-page “Selecting the Best” report to the board Tuesday in an effort to shed light on what community members feel are valuable qualities that need to be considered when seeking out and naming a new superintendent.

“Potential candidates must show evidence of success. The goal of the community meeting and survey was to provide community members with a platform to positively discuss how to improve upon the school district’s F rating,” Hines said. “We believe our recommendations will be helpful as the school board evaluates applicants for the new superintendent position.”

Jan Vaughn, who was named board president during Tuesday’s meeting, said she doesn’t want the community to sell the board short when it comes to finding the new superintendent.

“We are going to keep the community aware of every step of the process because we are demanding excellence,” she said. “We’re going to get the best we can get because we care about our children,” she said.

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Information from: Delta Democrat-Times, https://www.ddtonline.com

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