The Little Rock School Board voted Tuesday to extend invitations for second interviews to two applicants for the superintendent's job in the 21,000-student district.
The two finalists are George "Eric" Thomas, currently an education leadership consultant with the University of Virginia; and Jermall Wright, a Mississippi-state-employed superintendent for what have been two low-achieving school systems.
The School Board voted 8-0 in public -- with board member Evelyn Callaway absent because of illness -- to extend the invitations after meeting for more than two hours in a closed executive session. The interviews would be in-person.
Tuesday's meeting followed the board's initial on-line interviews last week with Thomas, Wright and two other candidates -- Stephanie Jones, who works in the Chicago public school system, and Lloyd Jackson, an assistant superintendent in the Kansas City, Mo., school district. Jackson is a former high school principal and deputy superintendent in Hot Springs.
The Little Rock School Board is working to select a replacement for current Little Rock Superintendent Mike Poore, 60, who has said he will retire at the end of June after six years as the district's chief executive.
School Board President Greg Adams said at the end of Tuesday's meeting that he will be in contact with the consulting firm that is aiding the district in the search for a superintendent to schedule times for the finalists to be in Little Rock and the activities they would participate in -- in addition to the board interviews -- while here.
"We know that we are going to want to provide the candidates the opportunity to meet representatives of the central office staff, principals, teachers, classified staff and also some members of stakeholder groups in our community," Adams said.
Those should include parents, students and leaders in business and community organizations, he said.
"I think we will look at having perhaps an open session where anybody could come and meet and ask some questions," Adams also said, adding that showing the candidates some of the city and some of the district's schools would also be included in the itinerary.
Thomas is a national consultant for the University of Virginia's Partnership for Leaders in Education and a former deputy superintendent/chief turnaround officer from 2017 to 2020 for the Georgia Board of Education.
He previously held different positions in the Cincinnati, Ohio, school district, including chief innovation officer and high school principal.
Wright is the superintendent of schools since July 2019 for the Mississippi Achievement School District that is an arm of the Mississippi Board of Education and, as such, oversees the Yazoo City and Humphreys County school systems.
He was at one time the chief academic and accountability officer in Birmingham, Ala., schools, from 2017-2019, and held earlier administrative jobs in Philadelphia, Pa., and Denver, Colo.
Both candidates have doctoral degrees.
Little Rock School Board member Ali Noland made the motion to extend the invitations, seconded by Norma Johnson.
Noland, who thanked all the applicants for their interest in the job, said after the meeting that everyone involved in the superintendent search process "appreciates the gravity of the task." She called the selection of a chief executive "one of the most important and impactful decisions any school board can make.
"Many LRSD stakeholder groups ... will be involved in the second round of interviews, and the board will have the benefit of hearing their feedback," Noland said.
Adams said that BWP & Associates, the search firm, has advised the board to ask community members who interact with the candidates to fill out a feedback form, the information from which can be used by the board in their decision-making.
Debra Hill, BWP & Associates' lead consultant for the Little Rock search, told the board earlier this year that the candidates recommended by the firm to the board are those who matched by at least 80% the qualifications and characteristics that board members, district employees and others said they wanted in the district's chief executive.
The feedback form will be based on those previously identified characteristics and qualifications, Adams said.
Poore was superintendent of the Bentonville School District in 2016 when he was appointed by Arkansas Education Secretary Johnny Key to the superintendent's job in what was at the time the state-controlled Little Rock district.
The Little Rock district was returned to the operation of a locally elected School Board in late 2020.
In November, Poore's contract was amended by the School Board to give him a $36,000 raise to an annual salary of $270,000. That contract expires June 30.