The clock will soon start for people to formally submit their names for consideration for Rosa Gill's seat on the school board.
As noted in today's article, the board agreed Tuesday to seek applications from the public through noon on July 20. The application window will begin once Gill's resignation becomes official, which is expected to take place by Thursday.
The board went through a lengthy review of the process. The upshot of it is that you shouldn't expect a guaranteed interview from the board.
One of the big questions is how many people will apply for the job.
The last time a vacancy occurred in 2001, 10 people applied for the District 8 opening. But six people were knocked out of the running when redistricting put them out of the district.
Of the remaining four people, all got interviews with the full board. The board wound up picking Jeff York for the seat, who later lost in the 2003 election to Ron Margiotta.
Margiotta had been one of the four applicants but only got one vote in the first round and was dropped from consideration.
With Gill's departure, Beverley Clark is the only remaining board member who participated in the 2001 search.
This time around, the board plans to screen the applications on July 28. They'll interview people on Aug. 5.
But board members said Tuesday they're not necessarily going to interview everybody if there are a large number of applicants. Instead, they might whittle down the names after the July 28 screening.
Board members indicated they'd like to avoid holding the interviews and vote on the same day. This could mean the vote takes place later in August.
The board won't want to wait much later than August or risk having it become an election issue in October. After all, at least three of the board members won't be around after November.
Gill told board members that it would be a good idea to talk to the leadership in the community about who they'd want to replace her. In this case we're talking about groups in Southeast Raleigh.
Gill told her colleagues she doesn't want to be consulted on her replacement. She said she doesn't want board members to feel they're bound to her recommendation.
For the applications, board members agreed to tell people to limit their letters of interest to five pages. Board members said they wanted all the applicants to have about the same length so that they could do an "apples to apples comparison."
You'll also need a resume and three letters of recommendation, which aren't counted against the page limit. Just make sure you live in District 4 before applying.
The entire process is public. This includes the names of the applicants, their applications, the interview process and deliberation process.
The fact that the board had to draw up a policy from scratch annoyed board member Eleanor Goettee. She said there should have already been something in writing laying out the steps.
"This is just poor," Goettee said of the fact they're doing things from scratch.
But Gill told Goettee "we can’t beat ourselves up too bad for this.”
