5/10/2011 6:58:00 PMCleveland schools CEO search committee sends three names to school board, mayor
May 10, 2011, 6:38 PM
By Thomas Ott, The Plain Dealer
A search committee met Tuesday with the three remaining candidates for chief executive officer of the Cleveland schools, then let all of them advance to the final round.
Mayor Frank Jackson and the school board will interview superintendents Cheryl Atkinson of Lorain, Bernard Taylor Jr. of Grand Rapids, Mich., and Chris Scott of Lowell, Mass., in Cleveland. No dates have been announced.
Board Chairwoman Denise Link said Jackson and the board also will visit the finalists' districts before deciding which candidate they like best. The board will ultimately make the selection, though the state law that placed Cleveland's schools under mayoral control requires Jackson's consent.
The new CEO will replace Eugene Sanders, who retired Feb. 1. The decision could come by June 1.
The committee interviewed each of the candidates for two hours Tuesday at Cleveland State University.
Jackson had asked for a minimum of two names when the hiring process began in February, but panel members decided to forward all three.
The decision was unanimous, said committee co-chairman Ronald Berkman, CSU's president. The three superintendents lead districts that, combined, are smaller than 44,000-student Cleveland, but Berkman said they grasp the issues confronting urban schools.
"All of them were worthy to be recommended," said committee co-chairman Arnold Pinkney, a former school board member.
Proact Search, a Chicago-area firm, fielded 126 applications for the job. The firm proposed 10 names to the committee, which discarded three and added two at a meeting last month. Two of the nine survivors withdrew.
The initial field of 126 included such figures as former Ohio Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher and Roderick Chu, ex-chancellor of the state's higher-education system. Chu made Proact's list, but not the committee's.
LaVonne Sheffield, chief of staff and airport director under former Cleveland Mayor Michael R. White, also applied. Sheffield, who recently stepped down as superintendent in Rockford, Ill., withdrew in an email received a little more than an hour before the field was winnowed.