The coming vacancy in Dade County’s school superintendent post drew 45 applications from nine states including the Peach State, officials said.
Dade Schools’ central office received 35 applications from Georgia, including two current school system administrators, and 10 from outside the state, Board of Education Chairwoman Carolyn Bradford said Friday.
The application deadline was Nov. 1.
Local applicants Dade Elementary School Assistant Principal Mike Lawson, Davis Elementary School Principal Mike Rich and a third local resident who asked not to be identified because of a current employment situation have tossed their hats in the ring, Bradford said.
“I think it’s a good number, and there are probably some excellent applicants in there,” outgoing Superintendent Patty Priest said of the 45 applicants. “I think the board will have a good group to choose somebody from.”
Priest, 62, announced she was retiring in September, just as the county was named among the participating school systems in the state’s Race to the Top second round grant funding win. Dade County High School also has a $2.6 million, three-year federal School Improvement Grant the new superintendent will have to manage, officials said after Priest’s retirement announcement.
Bradford said board members want to hire someone who can work with Priest and grant officials until the new superintendent takes over next July.
The process is still “in the early stages,” she said.
“All I’ve done is just counted out where they’re from. We’ve not had a meeting yet to go further to look at the applications,” she said. Interviews likely will begin in December, she said.
“We will probably work up a set of interview questions that will be for everybody we interview,” Bradford said. “We’ll ask the same questions of every person to be fair. The board will decide as a group what those questions will be.”
Priest said some of the hopefuls had called her with questions about the post.
“Mostly, they just had general questions,” she said.