A new superintendent for Atlanta Public Schools is expected to be made by this fall, and not July 1 as originally planned.
An exact timeline is unknown as the Atlanta Board of Education continues what is now turning into a more than year-long search for the next leader of one of the largest school districts in the state.
Last week, the board said it was accepting new applications for superintendent through May 17. The original deadline was Jan. 12.
The board also said it was extending its contract with Dr. Danielle Battle as interim superintendent through Dec. 31.
The May 17 extension came a couple of weeks after the board said applicants had until May 2 to apply for the superintendent post. That extension was granted after members learned the names of some candidates were made public — a violation of the process.
“You have a group of parents, you have community people, you have stakeholders, you have people who know people all around the United States and Georgia and Atlanta — and people are having conversations,” Atlanta Board of Education Chairperson Erika Mitchell said.
“I was told this is one of the biggest searches, so people are talking about it,” she said. “Conversations were taking place in different areas all over the city, there were candidates that were sharing information with the public, to lobby people to support them for the position.”
The search for a new superintendent began last year after the board voted in June not to renew Dr. Lisa Herring’s contract. Herring served from July 1, 2020, until August 2023.
The school board hired Illinois-based Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates to conduct a national search.
In December, the school board approved what it wanted to see in its next superintendent: a confident and transparent communicator, equity-driven, uses data to make decisions, knows Atlanta and is politically astute, and has experience leading large school districts.
In January, just days before the application process would close for superintendent candidates to apply, two new school board members were sworn into office — Ken Zeff and Albert “Shivy” Brooks.
Mitchell also started her new position as board chair. The changes interrupted the search process a bit, she said.
Mitchell said she could not say how many people had applied for the job by the Jan. 12 deadline.
Did some people who already applied for the job have to drop out and that is why the searches have been extended?
“No,” Mitchell said.
“We don’t have to restart the whole process.” she said. “The search firm will do the intake and then they provide us the entire pool of candidates that applied since Day One.”
Later this year, the board will interview a slate of candidates and pick up to three finalists. The finalists will then meet with parents, students, and the public who will provide input to a community advisory panel. That panel then makes its recommendations to the board.
“Their feedback is taken at high value, let me just say that,” Mitchell said. “But rest assured, the board makes the decision.”
“I am big on structure and doing things the right way,” Mitchell said. “Our families and our children and our students, our employees, our stakeholders — they are dependent on us to get this right. And they are dependent on us to do it the right way.