Potential candidates for the Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School Board can submit their names to qualify starting Wednesday.
The deadline for qualifying is Friday, Sept. 7. Board member elections will be held on Nov. 1.
One new board member must come from Leflore County District 2 and the other from District 3, according to legislation ordering Greenwood and Leflore County schools to consolidate by July 1, 2019.
Once elected in November, the two new board members will replace, in January 2019, two outgoing Greenwood School District board members, George Ellis Jr. and Antwoine Williams.
The newly formed board will be composed of the two newly elected members and three existing Greenwood School Board members: Randy Clark, Deirdre Mayes and Samantha Milton. This board will preside over important choices for the new district, including who will be its superintendent.
General qualifications for office are posted at the Circuit Clerk’s Office at the Leflore County Courthouse.
Of the board members remaining on the Greenwood board, two of them, Mayes and Milton, live in Districts 2 and 3 and, according to a state attorney general’s opinion, can run for the consolidated school board seats while continuing to hold their current positions.
Neither has disclosed whether she intends to run.
Should they run for the new board, they would not be required to resign from their existing positions. If not elected, they could continue to serve their unexpired terms until they are replaced under the terms of the consolidation legislation.
Should either Mayes or Milton run and win election to the new board, she would have to give up her existing seat and be replaced by an appointee from the county district scheduled for placement in the next round of elections in 2020. Those are Districts 4 and 5.
Mike Kent, interim deputy superintendent of the Mississippi Department of Education, met with the Greenwood board in May and outlined the importance of the new board elections to the success of the consolidation process.
“When we get two new board members in place, we’ll start running this thing,” Kent said. “Beginning Jan. 1, 2019, when they are sworn in, conversations should begin to happen on how to choose the superintendent of the consolidated district.”
The new board will immediately begin to tackle other administrative issues, such as standardizing pay scales among all the schools, standardizing policies and procedures and getting legal representation in place.
In the spring of its first year, 2019, the board will be charged with overseeing federal program applications, making decisions involving the potential closing of a school and identifying principals for all schools in the new consolidated district.
•Contact Kathryn Eastburn at 581-7235 or keastburn@gwcommonwealth.com.
