Wendell Jones

| Anna L. Mallory

anna.mallory@roanoke.com, 381-8627

Finalists for Montgomery County's open superintendent's job could be named as early as today, school board Chairman Wendell Jones said, but first the board must confirm the candidates are still interested in the job.

"We won't release all the information until we've gotten confirmation from all the finalists," Jones said Wednesday.

School board members were expected to meet late into the night Wednesday to interview the last semifinalists and then to decide which they want to return to meet with the public next week. Most of the applicants are either superintendents, assistant superintendents or acting superintendents, Jones said.

Board members have tentatively scheduled a candidate forum for Monday night, but Jones said that also depends on candidates' availability.

The plan is to hire someone by Christmas to replace former Superintendent Tiffany Anderson, Jones said. Anderson left in June, and Walt Shannon has been the district's interim leader since then.

When Anderson was hired in 2004, the finalists for that position met at Christiansburg High School and each was allotted 45 minutes in a public question-and-answer session.

During the interview process, board members have peppered candidates with 14 questions, about issues such as career and technical education, capital improvement projects, arts and music and budget and personnel issues.

The school system is paying for candidates' travel and that cost will be factored into the fees charged by Iowa-based search firm Ray and Associates. The firm was contracted for a base fee of $19,500.

Board members haven't yet released the interview questions or any of the candidates' names. The only information made public about the search to date has been the timeline for the process.

The questions will eventually be released, Jones said.

Jones and other board members said the secrecy has been planned from the beginning to protect applicants' jobs -- but one board member said during Tuesday night's school board meeting that he doesn't understand the need for such a closed process.

"I just know we're spending a lot of time behind closed doors and we're doing things that we can't do in open session because people's careers and livelihood are at stake," Joe Ivers said. "I can understand that to a point, but again it just seems there that might be something I could tell my constituents."

Ivers told board members that some people have told him the board's actions are starting to look "cloak and dagger."

He had hoped to get the board to open up and release some basic information, such as the number of applicants or if they are from the New River Valley.

The rest of the board, as well as Shannon, who didn't apply for the job, disagreed.

Board members and the interim superintendent said they have been as open as they could be. Shannon said that using public money does not preclude personnel privacy.

"We don't release information to those who think we need to release it to them," Jones said.

Instead, the board must protect applicants who have been promised anonymity for fear their current jobs could be in jeopardy. He said that the board has been more open than other local agencies.