When it formally kicked off its hunt for the next New Orleans superintendent in late January, the Orleans Parish School Board outlined a three-month search process intended to culminate in early April with public interviews of the top candidates and, in quick succession, a vote to extend a contract to one of them.
From community listening sessions to a plan for advertising the post, each step was standard operating procedure except one: An asterisk at the bottom of the PowerPoint laying out a timeline stated that the board reserves the right to stop the process at any time and simply appoint someone.
That note did little to quell concerns among leaders of the city’s schools — all but one of them independent public charter schools — who are still reeling from the fractious events that led up to the abrupt November departure of Avis Williams. The former superintendent resigned after a series of missteps that included an accounting error that obscured a deficit of at least $36 million…