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Superintendent candidates to meet at PSHS

PARKERSBURG – Residents can meet and hear four candidates for superintendent of Wood County Schools at public forum at 10 a.m. Saturday at Parkersburg South High School.

The event is being coordinated by the West Virginia School Board Association.

The Wood County Board of Education on Tuesday announced four finalists would be invited to the public forum and next week’s interview session with the board. Those finalists are Ronald B. Cantley II, John Flint, Thomas Graves and Kenneth Moles.

The four are vying for the position of superintendent to succeed Pat Law, who will retire at the end of June.

Howard O’Cull, executive director of the School Board Association, said the format will be similar to past public forums. Each candidate will have about 40 minutes to make an opening statement, answer questions sent to the association by members of the public and end with a closing statement.

“The candidate chooses how to use their time, so if they want to spend 30 minutes making an opening statement, then they will just have that much less time to answer questions,” O’Cull said.

O’Cull said questions for the candidates can be sent today to the School Board Association at info@wvsba.org. Some questions have already been submitted, and O’Cull said questions also can be submitted to officials in person prior to the start of Saturday’s forum.

“If we have time we will get to those,” he said.

O’Cull also said those in attendance will be asked to fill out feedback forms on each candidate, most likely right after the candidate has finished speaking. O’Cull said there will be a five minute break in between speakers.

Saturday’s forum is one opportunity for the public to become involved in the superintendent search process. The school board will hold an open meeting beginning 6:30 p.m. Tuesday for public comment. The only agenda items is public discussion of the superintendent and speakers will be given 3-5 minutes, depending on the number of speakers, to address the school board concerning the qualities they would like in the next superintendent.

The board also is scheduled to meet at 5:30 p.m. April 2 to conduct closed-door interviews with the four finalists, giving each candidate about an hour to meet with board members.

The school board hopes to have a final choice announced by April 8.

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