Duval County School Board locks in new deadline to pick a superintendent

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The Duval County School Board met today with an update on its superintendent search after a months-long pause.

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This morning, the Florida School Board Association first presented a revised timeline to select a new superintendent to the board, recommending a mid-June deadline to pick its next leader. But today, board members pushed it up a month.

It’s part of the board’s now renewed efforts to find a new superintendent as soon as possible while giving itself time to review every application it receives. Here’s the new superintendent search timeline agreed upon by the school board today:

• March 15 - April 15: Application window open for candidates
• April 23: School board meeting to choose semi-finalists for superintendent position
• May 1: Deadline for semi-finalists to turn in recorded video answers to questions provided by the school board
• May 7: School board meeting to choose finalists for the job (at 2:00 PM)
• May 13 - 14: On-site interviews with finalists
• May 23: Special school board meeting to pick new superintendent (at 9:00 AM)
• July 1: The new superintendent starts

This isn’t the board’s first, or possibly final, timeline.

At the start of the school year, Action News Jax told you when the board laid out its original timeline to pick a superintendent by January 1.

READ: DCPS plans to have new superintendent by summer

But back in October, the board stopped its search. At the time, it said the 10 candidates who applied didn’t meet board standards.

The board’s been without a permanent superintendent since last May when the school board voted to separate itself from now-former superintendent Dr. Diana Greene.

This time around, the board says it feels better about finding the best fit.

“We’re confident at this point,” says Darryl Willie, chairman of the Duval County School Board, “we’re excited to see which candidates flow in and what the community says about these candidates as well.”

The board, today, also talked about possibly changing its preferred and minimum qualifications to apply for the superintendent job. Those changes can be found through DCPS once the application goes live.

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