The North Little Rock School Board will interview as many as six applicants in the coming days for the job of superintendent in the 8,500-student district.
The board has invited Bobby Acklin, Laura Bednar and Marvin Burton to talk both with the board and with a panel of district residents and employees starting at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, School Board President Sandi Campbell said Saturday.
Another round of School Board and panel interviews are set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday, at which time the invited candidates are Micheal Stone, Charity Smith and Jeff Stubblefield.
The sessions are organized so that the individual applicants will cycle through interviews with the board and the citizen/employee panel. The panel will then present its written impressions to the School Board.
The board is seeking a replacement for Kelly Rodgers, who has said he will retire at the end of the current school year, June 30.
A total of 15 people from across the country submitted applications for the open job.
Acklin of North Little Rock 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.*
Bednar of Little Rock is the head of school for Baptist Preparatory School since 2016. She is 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.
Burton of Little Rock is the 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.
Stone has been 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.
Smith, a former assistant commissioner for school accountability for the Arkansas Department of Education, is a principal education associate for Fetterman & Associates, a California school-improvement consulting firm. She worked in various positions in the Arkansas Education Department from 1994 to 2011. Before that, she was a principal in the Little Rock School District.
Stubblefield is superintendent of the Charleston School District, where he has worked since 1984 as teacher, coach, and high school principal.
Metro on 04/29/2018
*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.