The Conway School District board voted on Nov. 11 to advance four candidates to the semifinal/finalist stage of its superintendent search, moving beyond the three-person slate recommended by search lead Jeff Standridge.

Standridge told the board that a 13-element rubric and an advisory committee’s review produced a distinct top tier of candidates. He recommended Bruce Gary, Jason Black and Tamika Brown as the top three. After discussion about including additional Arkansas-based applicants and concerns about tenure and contextual flags on several applications, a motion passed to add one candidate from the next tier, creating a four-person semifinal list.

Board members discussed how the semifinal and finalist rounds will proceed. Standridge said the search-advisory committee will conduct virtual interviews and reference checks, then provide standardized reference reports to the board. He said in-person finalist interviews, background checks and negotiations would follow, and recommended aiming to finish interviews before Dec. 12 if possible so contract negotiations could occur during the December holiday break.

The board discussed logistics for interviewing after regular work hours (required for public meetings) and agreed on several tentative dates in December for the committee’s and board’s interviews, with at least one evening deliberation session planned. Standridge said he would prepare interview dates, reference-check forms and vetting schedules and asked the board to avoid contacting references directly to prevent duplicate outreach.

What’s next: the search-advisory committee will complete reference checks and virtual interviews, provide results to the board, and the board will hold finalist interviews and deliberate on selection and contract terms; dates in early–mid December were proposed for semifinal interviews and a final selection window in late December or January.

Attribution: Jeff Standridge, search lead, presented the application review and recommendation; the board voted on the motion to advance semifinalists.