NLR schools post draws 14 applicants

Fourteen people submitted applications for the superintendent's job in the 8,500-student North Little Rock School District as of Monday's deadline.

The applicants are seeking to replace Kelly Rodgers, who has said he will retire at the conclusion of this school year, June 30.

The applicants include one current district administrator and one former longtime administrator as well as a deputy superintendent from the Little Rock School District, and a former assistant commissioner in the state Department of Education. The applicant pool includes superintendents elsewhere in Arkansas as well as educators living in other states -- some with Arkansas roots.

The applicants are:

• Bobby Acklin of North Little Rock, who was an assistant superintendent for the North Little Rock district from 1989 to 2013, then superintendent of the Dollarway School District and later the Warren School District.*

• Marvin Burton of Little Rock, deputy superintendent/associate superintendent of high schools in the Little Rock School District where he has previously served as a biology teacher, curriculum coordinator, assistant principal, middle school principal and high school principal.

• Laura Bednar of Little Rock, head of school for Baptist Preparatory School since 2016, formerly deputy superintendent in the Pulaski County Special School District; former assistant commissioner of learning services in the Arkansas Department of Education; and former superintendent of the Stuttgart School District.

• Keith Bausman of Columbia, Mo., assistant superintendent of human resources in Columbia, Mo., schools. He previously worked in human resources and as a principal and statistics teacher in the New Mexico school districts of Socorro, Jal and Hobbs, and as a teacher in Bisbee, Ariz.

• Jerry Bell of Peoria, Ill., academic instruction officer in the Peoria Public School District. A graduate of Dumas High, Philander Smith College , University of Arkansas at Monticello and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, Bell previously worked in Little Rock as a teacher and assistant principal, in Pine Bluff as a teacher and principal, and in the Pulaski County Special School District as a principal.

• Jason Eitner of Mount Laurel, N.J., proprietor of Eitner Education LLC, and formerly superintendent in Waterford Township School District and Lower Alloways Creek School District, both in New Jersey, and social studies supervisor in Hopewell Valley Regional School District, also in New Jersey. He's been a teacher and an assistant principal and is a retired 20-year U.S. Army veteran.

• Eric Ely of Concord, N.C., currently a teacher at Cox Mill High in Cabarrus County Schools in North Carolina, after working as a management consultant; superintendent of Southbridge, Mass., schools and Schenectady City, N.Y., schools. He also has been a high school principal in Dover, N.H, and Zanesville, Ohio, as well as math and science teacher.

• Joseph Fisher, superintendent of the Atkins School District.

• Tom Graves of Abingdon, Va., currently a consultant who previously worked briefly in Halifax County, Va., and Espanola, N.M., schools.

• Micheal Johnson of Centennial, Colo., instructional superintendent in the Denver public school system and formerly a principal in the Tulsa School District. He is a graduate of Fort Smith Northside High and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

• Timm MacDonald of Jacksonville, who retired from education in California. Most recently he worked in the West Contra Costa Unified School District after serving as a teacher and administrator in the Los Angeles Unified School district from 1989 to 2011.

• Christopher Quinn of Stafford, Va., where he is director of instruction and assistant principal in Stafford County Public Schools. He was an executive assistant to the superintendent and then superintendent in Dublin, Ga., and was assistant superintendent for leadership and evaluation in Buffalo, N.Y.

• Micheal Stone, executive director of student and equity services for the North Little Rock district since 2013, and previously director of federal programs, elementary school principal and assistant principal as well as a teacher in the district.

• Jeff Stubblefield, superintendent of the Charleston School District, where he has also worked since 1984 as teacher, coach, and high school principal.

Metro on 04/17/2018

*CORRECTION: Bobby Acklin, an applicant for North Little Rock School District superintendent, has worked since August 2017 as a part time adviser/trainer for novice teachers in central Arkansas charter schools for the Arkansas Public School Resource Center. Before that, he was the Warren School District superintendent until June 30, 2017. Acklin’s current employment was incorrectly reported in a previous version of this story based on applicant documents provided by the North Little Rock School District.

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