Under the cloud of a potential employee sickout when students return next month from summer break, the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board on Tuesday stepped forward in their search for a new superintendent, conducting formal interviews of the two remaining finalists.
Tuesday was the second day of interviews. Finalists Kevin George, director of the LSU Lab School in Baton Rouge, and Andrea Zayas, former chief academic officer of Boston Public Schools, fielded questions from 10 groups each Monday for several hours.
“I think I never want to apply for another job again,” Zayas joked near the end of her interview Tuesday.
A final vote is scheduled for Thursday at 5 p.m. at the School Board Office, 1050 S. Foster Drive. Despite being finalists, George and Zayas are unlikely to be the only names in contention. They will almost certainly be contending with Interim Supt. Adam Smith, even though Smith fell one vote short of being a finalist himself when they were selected June 28.
Since that vote, Smith supporters have continued to press their case for the 28-year veteran of the state’s second largest traditional school district.
On Monday, they upped the ante when leaders of the three employee groups announced they would hold a first-day-of-school sickout if Smith is not made superintendent.
Board Vice President Patrick Martin V is one of the five board members who opted not to make Smith a finalist. Martin told The Advocate he hopes employees and the public will see the value of keeping school in session.
“Everyone should be able to agree that what’s in the best interest of the kids is to have quality teachers in the classroom teaching them from day one and I would all hope we would all come together on that,” Martin said.
The idea of reviving Smith also was buoyed by the unexpected departure of finalist Krish Mohip, a veteran educator from Chicago who spent three years as superintendent of a troubled school district in Ohio. Mohip withdrew his name Saturday from contention, saying he is taking another job.
In response to board questions Tuesday, George and Zayas made clear they understand the difficulty they will face if the board picks one of them to become superintendent.
George said he understands and respects the support Smith has demonstrated.
“They know the gentleman, they respect the gentleman, and once they know me I hope I will have the same support,” George said.
Zayas acknowledged there’s a lot of work ahead of her.
“EBR is in a place of sharp difficulty and healing from that difficulty will be really important in order to move forward,” she said. “I would be looking to my colleagues to engage with me in a process of having conversations, listening to the community to really rebuild that trust.”
Only six of the nine school board members were present Tuesday. Absent were Dadrius Lanus, Cliff Lewis and Shashonnie Steward.
Lanus said after the June 28 vote to exclude Smith that he would no longer be participating in the search process and won't be voting Thursday. Lewis and Steward were present for Monday’s community interviews. Lewis informed the board Tuesday that he had a family issue that prevented him from attending the board interviews.
George, a native of Crowley, made his name as an educator in New Orleans is best known for his time as superintendent of schools in St. John the Baptist Parish from 2013 to 2019. During the interviews this week, he’s trumpeted the academic improvement during his time in St. John when it improved from a D letter grade when he started to a B — it later slipped back to a C later in his superintendency.
George said he sets his expectations and an accountability structure and lets his staff do their job.
“I don’t believe in hiring people and then standing over them and telling them what to do,” he said.
For principals, he said he will give them a free hand if they show results.
“You’re going to have the opportunity to make or break your school,” he said.
George took over LSU Lab School in 2021 and said he helped the already A-rated school improve its ranking from 18th in the state to ninth by asking teachers to look more closely at their testing data than they had previously.
“As they looked at that data, they started to have that ‘Aha’ moment,” he said.
Board member Martin asked George why he would consider leaving a high performing school like the lab school. He said he’s attracted to the challenge posed by East Baton Rouge, which is home to more than 40,000 students, and the consequent need.
“I have an opportunity. I felt I had an obligation, because I felt like you should have quality candidates to choose from,” George said.
George said he did not apply before getting the blessings of LSU Chancellor William Tate and George’s superior, Dean Roland Mitchell.
“'If these guys mess it up, we’ll welcome you back,'” George recalled Tate saying when informed of his plans.
In any case, George said that if he gets the EBR job he has no plans to leave soon, saying he could see him in the job for as long as a decade, saying “I have the wherewithal and the stamina.”
“I don’t want you to have to do this again in another two, three, four years,” George said.
Zayas, who grew up in New Jersey, has varied resume, working as an art teacher, opening her own charter school in Brooklyn, before rising to school administration, spending one year as a turnaround superintendent in Camden, N.J. and later three years with Boston Public Schools, home to about 47,000 students. She also worked for five years in New Orleans, including two years in leadership development with KIPP, a prominent charter management organization. She still owns a home in New Orleans.
One job she’s never held, though, is a school superintendent. Zayas, however, betrayed no concern Tuesday.
“I’m ready,” Zayas said without hesitation. “All the things that need to be done in this role I’ve done already.”
Like George, she said she has no plans for a quick exit, but that said six years— roughly double the normal tenure of an urban superintendent in the United States — is her goal.
When it comes to improving student performance, Zayas points to when she did education consulting between 2016 and 2018 with charter schools in New Orleans. One of those schools Success Preparatory Academy, increased its school performance score 56.9 to 80.3 points, or more than 23 points, during that time.
Zayas talked a lot about working in a collaborative way with district staff to solve problems, but she also said she won’t avoid hard issues.
“It’s going to take leadership to build the habit and the culture to face the brutal facts: It ain’t working,” she said. “And if it’s not working, we need to be able to look at it and then chart a path towards a different way.”
