Willison, 3 others to vie for superintendent’s post
Posted on Saturday, March 29, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/nwat/News/63613/
An associate superintendent for the Fayetteville School District, Bryant’s superintendent and two out-of-state administrators make up the four finalists to become Fayetteville’s next superintendent.
Board of Education President Steve Percival released the names of the four applicants the board plans to interview Friday afternoon. The school board made its decision in an executive session at Thursday night’s regular board meeting.
The finalists include Randy Willison, Fayetteville associate superintendent and the only inhouse employee to apply.
The others are Charles Abernathy, superintendent of the Bryant School District; Gary Norris, superintendent of the Sarasota (Fla. ) School District, and Michael Brophy, assistant superintendent of the Bethel School District in Spanaway, Wash. The district received 11 applications for the position. The board discussed the applications in a closed session at a meeting Thursday, but Percival initially declined to release the names of the finalists narrowed down during the discussion. He said he wanted to contact them first. Percival said Friday he hopes to begin scheduling board interviews with the applicants next week. “ As soon as we can, ” he said.
At this point, Percival said he anticipates doing one round of interviews with the four job candidates, then narrowing the selection down to two finalists for follow-up interviews. Willison first came to Fayetteville to be principal of the high school. He served in that post for three years until New promoted him to associate superintendent of operations in July 2006. At his current position, Willison oversees the transportation department, capital improvement projects, land acquisition and building maintenance. One of Willison’s most notable actions as high school principal was leading the change in the school schedule from a six- to seven-period day his last year. This initially sparked some strong opposition from teachers. Ironically, shortly after Willison announced the schedule change, he was named Principal of the Year by the Arkansas Association of Secondary School Princi pals.
As superintendent of the Bryant School District, Aber nathy oversees a district with about 6, 850 students. Fay etteville has about 8, 400 stu dents.
One of Abernathy’s chal lenges in recent years has been fallout from his dis trict’s annexation of the tiny Paron School District in 2004 due to Act 60, the consoli dation law that mandated districts with fewer than 350 students. Bryant eventually closed Paron High but Paron Elementary is still operation al, according to the district’ Web site.
Norris is about to reach his fourth year as superinten dent of Sarasota, as he was first hired on April 1, 2004 He resigned in 2006, and one of the issues cited in the letter was “ roadblocks” he encountered to implement ing a new learning initiative but he decided to stay after supporters convinced him to continue.
Norris was also a superin tendent of the Salina, Kan. School District. His district was among the schools that sued the state over the fund ing formula in the “ School’ For Fair Funding” lawsuit Kansas’ equivalent to Arkan sas’ Lake View lawsuit that led to a ruling requiring ade quate and equitable funding across the state.
He was also a recent final ist for the Albuquerque N. M., superintendent open ing, but the district selected another applicant.
Brophy has worked as his district’s assistant superin tendent for secondary edu cation since 2006. He was an assistant superintendent in Eastmount, Wash., before that, and most of his edu cation experience has been within the state of Washing