King interviews for Louisiana superintendent position (Jan. 18, 2012)
No word from Cobb on King's status (April 30, 2011)
Rockdale County Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Samuel King was named the lone finalist in the search for East Baton Rouge Parish School System's Superintendent on Wednesday night and will be asked back for a second interview, according to reports.
King said in a released statement, “I am truly honored to be considered as the finalist.”
The EBRPSS school board convened Wednesday night to narrow down the list of semifinalists, who had been interviewed in the past week. Two of the six semi-finalists had withdrawn their names by Wednesday.
After a long night of disagreements and deadlock, King was the only one of the four remaining semi-finalists that garnered enough votes in the 11 member school board to become a finalist, according to an article in The Advocate.
In addition to planning on asking King back for a second interview, the school board reserved the right to visit the Rockdale County Public School district.
Their current superintendent John Dilworth's contract expires June 30.
EBRPSS has approximately 42,000 students in preK-12 in 86 schools with approximately 6,252 full-time employees and more than 3,509 teachers, according to the school system's website. About 81 percent of the students are black and 82 percent live in poverty, according to The Advocate.
RCPS has about 16,000 students and 18 schools (excluding non-traditional schools such as Rockdale Career Academy), with a student population that's about 60 percent black. RCPS recently made Adequate Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for the sixth consecutive year.
King is in his sixth year as RCPS superintendent and was named 2011 Georgia Superintendent of the Year, after being a finalist for the past three years. Prior to Rockdale, he spent 10 years in administrative positions in the Clayton County school system and began his 27-year education career as a math and science teacher.
King was reportedly a finalist in superintendent search last year for the Cobb County School District and was considered for the DeKalb County superintendent search.
