Vick a Finalist for Kentucky School Chief: Owensboro Public Schools Superintendent in Seventh Year at City Schools

By Joy Campbell, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

Oct. 29–Larry Vick, in his seventh year as superintendent of Owensboro Public Schools, is one of five finalists for Kentucky education commissioner.

The Kentucky Board of Education announced the names of four of its top five picks after a meeting Sunday.

The board will release the fifth finalist’s name after that person is reached and has confirmed continuing interest in the post, according to a news release from the Kentucky Department of Education.

“I’m honored to be selected as a finalist,” Vick said when contacted Sunday night at home. “I’m looking forward to talking to the state board about my ideas for moving the state forward to that 2014 goal.”

All schools are on a track to have students in grades 3-8 performing at the proficient level in reading and math and to meet other state and federal goals by 2014.

“We’ve had good results in Owensboro, and I feel like I could share some of our methodology that could be employed by the state,” Vick said.

In the last commissioner search, no one from the state applied, and that figured into his decision to apply, Vick said.

The job has been open since former Commissioner Gene Wilhoit left last November to take a job in Washington. The state board of education hired Barbara Erwin, a former Illinois educator, in May. Erwin, however, resigned in July shortly before she was supposed to start.

“I felt like I couldn’t let that happen again,” he said. “But if I didn’t think I could do the job, I wouldn’t have applied.”

Two or three superintendents that Vick would have liked to have seen apply for the job did not, and that opened the door for him, he said.

The state board sent two to three e-mails encouraging Kentucky superintendents to apply, Vick said. That was a signal to him that board members would take a strong look at candidates from those ranks.

Indeed, these three others named Sunday also are former superintendents:

— State Rep. Jon Draud, a former superintendent of Ludlow Independent school district.

— Richard Hughes, a Morehead State University professor and former superintendent of the Hardin County school district.

— Jim Warford, executive director and CEO of the Florida Association of School Administrators and a former chancellor for Florida’s public schools. He was an elected superintendent of Marion County in Florida.

The full state board of education will interview the finalists and go into closed session to consider its selection on Nov. 13 and 14. That meeting will take place at the Embassy Suites Cincinnati RiverCenter in Covington.

Vick said he is at a point in his career with the experience and training that would allow him to make a contribution and move the entire state forward.

The superintendent has one more year left on his current contract. Before coming to Owensboro he was superintendent of the Paris (Tenn.) Special School District, a K-8 public school system. Owensboro has about 4,300 students in preschool through 12th grade.

The district is meeting all of its No Child Left Behind goals. For the last two years, it has been identified by Standard & Poor’s School Evaluation Services as one of 18 “outperforming” districts from 171 in the Kentucky comparison group.

The public is invited to comment on the finalists by accessing http://education.ky.gov/FormServ/?ID=NextCommissioner

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Copyright (c) 2007, Messenger-Inquirer, Owensboro, Ky.

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