Superintendent may be named by March 21

A new superintendent for Enterprise City Schools may be named by March 21, 2017.

The Enterprise Board of Education held a work session Tuesday, Dec. 13, to finalize details for hiring a superintendent and voted unanimously to approve that timeline at a voting meeting immediately following.

The ECS top slot open since the Dec. 1 retirement of Dr. Camille Wright, will be posted on the ECS and Alabama Association of School Boards websites by Dec. 20, the board decided. The call for applicants will remain open until Jan. 31, 2017.

The EBOE decided that after a review of applicants, finalists for the position would be announced March 2, 2017. The board also authorized EBOE President Dorothy Richardson to announce the finalists for the superintendent position outside of a regularly scheduled EBOE meeting.

The EBOE tentatively scheduled March 3 through March 20, 2017 for interviews with the finalists in the hopes of naming a new superintendent at the regularly scheduled EBOE meeting March 21, 2017.

During the work session, the EBOE also discussed the salary range—between $125,000 and $160,000—and the job qualification requirements. Whether the successful candidate must have a doctorate was briefly discussed, with the general consensus of the board being that the verbiage “preferred but not required” be part of the job description. “You can have a Ph.D. without having experience in school supervision,” noted EBOE past president Gloria Jones.

Greg Faught has served as interim superintendent of the ECS since being appointed to the position at an EBOE meeting Nov. 29.

Faught has served as ECS Assistant Superintendent—essentially as director of operations—since February 2014. In that capacity he developed and annually updated the schools’ capital plan and has overseen all aspects of the building and renovation projects.

Faught said he plans to submit his name as a candidate for ECS superintendent once the formal selection process begins.

In unrelated business, the board heard from Lissa Dusel, from the Appleton Employment Agency that is used by ECS to hire substitute teachers and support personnel to include nurses and custodial personnel.

At a previous EBOE meeting, several teachers and administrators expressed dissatisfaction with the services obtained from the agency that has replaced Kelley Employment Services this school year.

Dusel said she was dismayed to learn of the dissatisfaction through media sources reporting on the EBOE meeting rather than by being contacted about complaints in person. Dusel said she wanted to address the board because, “I definitely didn’t want the squeaky wheel to be the only wheel heard.”

Dusel said that generally it takes about 90 days to “roll out” Appleton into a new school system and that their entry into ECS was completed in 40 days. Dusel attributed “coming on board so quickly” to part of the transition problems.

Dusel told the board that Appleton has recently hired three new nurse substitutes and the company is working on recruiting custodial workers.

Dusel also said that there are three ways complaints can be filed with Appleton. Teachers or administrators can file complaints online at the Appleton customer support portal, via telephone call into the call center or by contacting her.