School board picks Feb. 28 for superintendent selection

CENTERVILLE -- If plans approved Thursday by the St. Mary School Board hold true, parish public schools will have a new superintendent by the end of the month.

The board decided in a special meeting to begin interviewing the four candidates to succeed Leonard Armato at 5 p.m. Feb. 28 at the Central Office Complex in Centerville. Armato is retiring June 30 after four years in the top job.

The interviews will be conducted in a closed-door session and consist of eight pre-selected questions over a period of about 45 minutes for each candidate. The board plans to make its selection the same night.

If no one gets the required six votes from the 11-member board on the first attempt, the board will vote again on the top two vote-getters.

Through all the discussions that set up the procedure, the most controversial item was the interview meeting date.

Previously, board members had talked about a Saturday meeting for the interviews. On Thursday, board President Michael Taylor suggested a 3 p.m. Feb. 28 meeting. Taylor said he'd talked with other board members about that date.

That didn't sit well with Vice President Pearl Rack, who had a scheduling conflict on Feb. 28. So, as it turned out, did board member Joseph Foulcard.

"You talked to other board members," Rack told Taylor. "You didn't talk to me."

The board voted for the 3 p.m. Feb. 28 meeting. Members Taylor, Roland Verret, Wayne Deslatte, Ginger Griffin, Kenny Alfred, Alaina Black and Dwight Barbier voted for that time and date. Rack, Foulcard and Sylvia Lockett voted against. Member Marilyn LaSalle was absent.

The decision lasted only a short time before Alfred moved to reconsider.

"I couldn't sleep at night knowing we voted two of our members out of the selection process," Alfred said.

"Thank you very, very much for making that motion," Rack said.

After a short discussion, members found they could accommodate Foulcard and Rack by pushing the meeting time back to 5 p.m. Feb. 28. A motion to that effect passed unanimously on a voice vote.

The board also considered whether to conduct the interviews in a public session or in a closed executive session. Black moved to hold interviews in front of the public.

"I do feel like our stakeholders should see how we choose (a superintendent)," Black said.

In any case, the final vote would occur in an open session, legal adviser Eric Duplantis said.

But Deslatte said the public session might work against good interviews. In a closed session, he said, "I think the candidates are more at ease and we get more information."

Griffin said a public session would put the first candidate to be interviewed at a disadvantage, because he or she would not know the questions in advance while the other interviewees would.

The vote to conduct the interviews in open session failed 6-4, with Black, Foulcard, Lockett and Rack voting in favor. Taylor, Deslatte, Barbier, Griffin, Verret and Alfred voted against.

On a separate motion to hold the closed session, Foulcard voted yes, so the vote was 7-3.

The candidates will be interviewed in this order, chosen at random:

—Clyde Washington, executive assistant superintendent of administration in Rapides Parish with 22 years’ experience.

—Dr. Teresa Bagwell, assistant St. Mary superintendent with 37 years’ experience.

—Dr. Glen Barnes, the only out-of-state applicant, a principal in Cleveland, Texas, with 20 years’ experience.

—Dr. Buffy Fegenbush, St. Mary instructional supervisor of secondary education, with 27 years’ experience.

The board advertised a starting salary of $120,000 to $140,000 for the new superintendent.

St. Mary Parish Council member Craig Mathews had talked to the board Feb. 14 in favor a St. Mary Principals Association request to have non-participating members present at the interviews, to submit questions for the candidates and to make a recommendation about the hiring. The board didn't take up the request then.

Mathews spoke that night in impassioned terms about a lack of transparency and inclusiveness and about a community that doesn't trust the school board.

He was back Thursday, saying that he "did not intend to be insensitive to this body."

Mathews asked again for the board to be inclusive and consider views from St. Mary residents.

Taylor said the principals have already submitted good questions. But opening the interviews to others could lead to more demands, he said.

"To me, it gets kind of convoluted at that point," Taylor said.

A motion to reconsider the requests failed.

Later, after the first vote on the meeting date that would have excluded Rack and Foulcard, Mathews said loudly from the audience, "Now you see why we don't trust you." Then he strode out of the meeting room.

If he'd stayed, he'd have seen the vote to reconsider the meeting time.