Richmond superintendent hiring staff

A year after assuming control of the Richmond school system, Superintendent Yvonne W. Brandon is ready to create a staff of her own.

She has made a choice for chief operating officer, which she will ask the School Board to approve during a special meeting on July 9.

The call for applications for chief academic officer closes tomorrow. The new position is part of a switch to a more streamlined administration that will align departments based on instruction or operations.

Interviews for the executive directors of secondary and elementary education -- from fields of 38 and 23 candidates, respectively -- continue this work, as does the search for a director of human resources.

The position of coordinator for handicap accessibility issues, a requirement under a court settlement over accessibility to city schools, will be advertised soon. It has been vacant since the previous coordinator left on short notice this month.

Brandon said during a School Board committee meeting last week that she wants to have her staff in place soon. "The hope is that they'll be in place before school begins," she said.

It hasn't been an easy process.

By the time the previous superintendent, Deborah Jewell-Sherman, left last summer, most of her senior staff had retired, accepted jobs elsewhere or otherwise left the school system.

As interim superintendent, Brandon wasn't in the position to hire permanent replacements. By the time she got the job, the school year was half over, leaving the most viable candidates already employed. Of her top three administrators, two are retirees who have been working on a fill-in basis, and the third is someone who had intended to retire but agreed to delay that move until this summer.

"They've done a great job filling in, but that's not a sustainable model," said Adria A. Graham-Scott, chairwoman of the School Board's human-resources committee.

"We need to fill these positions ASAP, and [Brandon] knows that," Graham-Scott said.

She said she would not trade quality for haste in the process, though.

"I really want to see high-quality candidates," she said. "We've seen some exciting prospects. I won't say it hasn't been frustrating. It has. But I feel better knowing she has taken her time to find high-quality, high-performing candidates."

Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or .