District 5 to Meet Last Candidate: Council Will Trim List of 9 After Interview; Identities of 2 Hopefuls
By Bill Robinson, The State, Columbia, S.C.
Mar. 20–SUPERINTENDENT SEARCH
Lexington-Richland 5 trustees interview the ninth and final candidate tonight in their search to find a new superintendent for the Irmo-Chapin school system.
Immediately afterward, trustees will begin trimming that list. Their goal is to pick at least three people who will be invited back for the public to meet in early April.
State law allows the board to shield the names of the nine until it decides who will be chosen as finalists. But an administrative gaffe last week revealed the identity of at least two candidates.
One is local: Lee Bollman, District 5′s 58-year-old assistant superintendent who oversees curriculum and instruction.
The other is Dwight Hedge of Dyersburg, Tenn. Hedge is superintendent of a 3,500-student school system 75 miles north of Memphis — a post he has held for 28 years.
In the past 12 months, Hedge has been a finalist for jobs that went to other administrators, one in the suburbs of Little Rock, Ark., and another in Missouri.
In a phone interview, Hedge, 61, said, “My intention is to work 10 more years,” adding he is looking for a challenge — to manage a larger district similar to one he worked in as an assistant superintendent in the mid-1970s.
District 5, which has a $115 million operating budget, is home to 16,600 students, some of whom live in affluent suburban neighborhoods. It has been growing by about 500 to 600 students a year over the past several years, according to administrators.
Paul Krohne of the S.C. School Boards Association, which District 5 trustees hired to coordinate the search for a new superintendent, said the first eight candidates interviewed have produced “a tremendous amount of excitement” among trustees.
On the advice of Krohne, the trustees have declined to comment.
“The choice (of finalists) will be difficult,” Krohne said. “But that’s a good problem to have.”
The names of all finalists could be made public before the end of this week, he said.
Krohne has told District 5 trustees their goal should be to choose a new superintendent by late April so the person selected can give his or her current employer two months’ notice. Ray Geddings, the former Lexington 3 superintendent helping Krohne, said some in the pool of candidates are retired.
Trustees have not said what salary District 5 can afford, but they paid Dennis McMahon a base salary of $126,084 when a five-member majority voted to fire him in June 2005.
Tentative plans call for the three finalists to visit the Irmo-Chapin area in early April. There, they will appear at a series of public events to meet educators, parents, elected officials, civic and business leaders. Trustee delegations also will visit the finalists’ home communities for fact-finding, Krohne said.
Coordinating those visits is among Krohne’s priorities once the District 5 board tells him who it wants to invite back for a second interview.
Reach Robinson at (803) 771-8482.
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Copyright (c) 2006, The State, Columbia, S.C.
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