Board Starts Over With Superintendent Search
By Jessica Foster, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
May 16–The Horry County school board decided unanimously on Tuesday to start a new search for a superintendent because board members couldn’t agree on any of the three final candidates vying to fill the spot.
Dana Bedden, superintendent of the William Penn School District in Lansdowne, Pa., had the most support. Six board members wanted to see him in the job, said board member Ronald Bessant. A candidate would have needed a simple majority of seven votes to win the position.
Bedden along with the two other candidates, William Gummerson, superintendent of Lexington District 3 schools and Rick Maxey, executive director of secondary schools in Horry County, were in the district Monday and Tuesday touring schools and talking about their ideas with about a dozen groups that included parents, students and school district employees.
Bennie Swans with the Myrtle Beach branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People said he thought Bedden should have been selected for the job.
“I’m clearly disappointed,” he said. “I think that the best man should have received that job.”
Principal Johnny Calder of Forestbrook Middle School said “I applaud the board. If they don’t think the right person’s there, then they need to go back to the drawing board and find the right person.”
Board members have said they don’t want to rush into what they call the biggest decision the board will make: choosing the leader of the state’s third-largest and fastest-growing district, with 36,142 students and about a $501 million budget.
Board chairman Will Garland wasn’t sure when the board would launch a new search.
The board now hopes to have a new superintendent in place in July 2008.
Interim superintendent Bobby Nalley will continue fulfilling those duties until a new superintendent takes office.
Former superintendent Gerrita Postlewait resigned in July after nine years in that role so she would have more time to care for her mother in Arizona.
The national search for her replacement began in late 2006 with the help of the S.C. School Boards Association.
Contact JESSICA FOSTER at 626-0351 or jfoster@thesunnews.com [mailto:jfoster@thesunnews.com].
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Sun News, Myrtle Beach, S.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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