L.A. school board holds unusual Sunday meeting to interview superintendent candidates
L.A. schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, left, confers with school board president Steve Zimmer at district headquarters. The board on Sunday interviewed one or more candidates to replace Cortines, who wants to retire at the end of the year. (Bob Chamberlin / Los Angeles Times)
The Los Angeles Board of Education held an unusual Sunday meeting to interview candidates for the job of superintendent of the nation’s second-largest school system. Except for brief periods to open and close the meeting, the entire session was conducted out of public view, and no announcement was made at the conclusion.
“The board is approaching this with both the intensity and the focus that a decision that stands to affect so many children mandates,” said board president Steve Zimmer in a brief interview afterward.
The gathering was the first occasion for the school board to question one or more of those under serious review for the job of schools chief. About seven candidates initially are being considered from a pool of more than 100 brought forward by a search firm; their names have not been released.
Besides taking place on Sunday, the most unusual aspect of the meeting was that, after beginning in open session for one minute, board members traveled across the 110 Freeway to the 63rd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower to conduct interviews.
Zimmer declined to say why the closed session was moved to another location.
After meeting for eight hours in private, board members returned to district headquarters, reconvened in open session and adjourned until 8 a.m. Tuesday. They also have set aside time for interviews on Dec. 13.
The board is seeking a replacement for current Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, 83, who said he would like to retire at the end of the year. Cortines has headed the L.A. Unified School District three times — most recently when he agreed to replace John Deasy, who resigned under pressure in October 2014.
L.A. Unified is the nation’s largest school system run by an elected Board of Education, and it faces enormous challenges, including a potential budget deficit, shrinking enrollment and an outside effort to rapidly increase the number of charter schools, which could threaten the district’s financial solvency and its ability to provide services to L.A. school board holds its first interview for job of superintendent - LA Times: