A new superintendent has been selected for the Greenwood School District, and it’s not Dr. Jennifer Wilson.
The Greenwood School Board in a special meeting this morning approved a contract for the next superintendent, although the name of the selection was not immediately released.
The new superintendent was approved 4-1 by the board, with Lora Evans dissenting.
George Ellis, president of the Greenwood School Board, said the new superintendent will be introduced Tuesday during the school board’s regular monthly meeting.
Ellis did, however, acknowledge that Wilson, the interim superintendent, did not get the job.
Wilson was notified of the board’s decision to pass over her application in a letter last week, he said.
Ellis said the new superintendent is a male from the Delta who has served as a superintendent twice before. For the past few years, said Ellis, the man has run his own consulting firm.
The new superintendent’s salary was not disclosed.
“It was a tough choice between two people,” Ellis said. He added that the board’s search committee chose three finalists before settling on its top choice, and Wilson was not among the three finalists.
When pressed on the issue of why Wilson was not one of the finalists, despite public demonstrations on her behalf, Ellis said that he was “not going to go into all that.”
Wilson took over as the head of the 2,900-student school system after Dr. Margie Pulley retired last August. Wilson had been serving as an assistant superintendent for the Greenwood district.
Lee Hall, the host of a Greenwood radio talk show, said a protest would be held at Tuesday’s school board meeting. Hall said that a group of “concerned stakeholders” would be at the district’s central office to raise their voices against the actions of the school board. The protest was organized before this morning’s vote.
“They’re making decisions out of the light of day,” he said this morning.
Hall said organizers would protest the school board’s decision to look beyond Wilson, a product of the Greenwood public schools, for the job. According to Hall, “the entire community” supported Wilson getting the permanent post. “They ignored that,” said Hall.
