The first round of interviews for the vacant Starkville superintendent job is in the books.
Dr. Lewis Holloway, superintendent of Bulloch County School District (Ga.), and Dr. Michael Van Winkle, assistant superintendent of Jackson County School District, each interviewed Monday for about an hour in executive session at the Starkville School District central office on Greensboro Street.
The Starkville board of trustees and both candidates were mum on what questions they asked each candidate, but Holloway said the questions “weren’t surprising” given the similar challenges most districts across the country are facing.
“How we are with No Child Left Behind, there’s real issues facing public schools and a real concern about how we can improve schools for the future,” Holloway said. “Their questions were well thought out.”
Holloway is one of two semifinalist candidates who currently is a superintendent or has served in the role previously. Union Public Schools chief Dr. Michael McInnis, who will interview at 7:30 tonight, is the other candidate. Van Winkle, Starkville’s Dr. Walter Gonsoulin and Bay-Waveland High School Principal Dr. David Andy Parker have each been a finalist for at least one superintendent position in the past year.
Holloway, though, said there’s no way to tell if his 20-plus years as a superintendent gives him an advantage.
“I think school boards are a little bit like juries … You don’t ever know,” Holloway said. “I think at this stage, it’s going to take a relationship with the school board that works. When the chemistry is right, it’s right.”
Despite lacking superintendent experience, Van Winkle said his experience running the St. Martin Attendance Center is equivalent to running a school district the size of Starkville.
“There’s about 4,300 students in my attendance center, which is about what Starkville has,” Van Winkle said. “I tell people it’s kind of like I’m a mini superintendent.”
Starkville schools Board President Keith Coble said the board hasn’t discussed which attributes — like experience — will weigh greater than others. Coble said the board’s priority through the closed interviews is to learn as much as they can about each candidate.
“You learn something new in each interview,” Coble said. “And what we’re trying to do is work off a common set of information so we can be fair in comparing all the candidates.”
Making their case
Van Winkle helped oversee the rebuilding of a new high school following Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And the Jackson County School District is a high-performing district based on state test scores.
The one achievement Van Winkle was most excited to explain to the board was a teaming model used in middle schools, he said. Students and teachers are clustered near each other on a particular hall or wing of the school, instead of having classes spread across campus. Van Winkle said the model has helped with discipline and given teachers extra opportunities to provide additional help for students.
“It was a little bit difficult to implement at first, but once the teachers started to use it, they love it now,” Van Winkle said. “There’s been a lot of benefits for us.”
Holloway also highlighted his district’s assessment model, called Measure of Academic Progress. The model is used online with every student from kindergarten to 12th grade and provides immediate feedback and a growth track. Teachers and parents have online access to the system.
Public interview date indefinite
Because of logistics and uncertainty over how many candidates will make the final cut, Coble said the public interview session, slated for Feb. 6, is still up in the air.
The board hopes to name a list of finalists by Friday, Coble said. Interviews conclude Thursday.
“Friday is the target,” Coble said, “but again, we’re going back through (the Mississippi School Boards Association) to interact with each candidate and help coordinate things. We just can’t say definitively when we’ll have the public portion.”
Coble said the board has talked about hosting the public round — to be held at Starkville High School — on a Saturday. However, he said, the board is still researching which day would produce the greatest turnout.
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