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BY ABIGAIL ROBERTS

Correspondent

STANFORD — The Lincoln County Board of Education held a special-called meeting Monday, April 10, during which they met with Kentucky School Board Association (KSBA) representative Rebecca Burgett.

The meeting was to discuss the timeline and process for filling the board vacancy.

The vacant seat is for District 3, which is empty now that former board member Bruce Smith has resigned and announced his intent to apply for superintendent. The vacancy will need to be filled until November, when an election can be held.

Board Chairman Etta Meek said the vacancy has been advertised for two weeks and applications are being received. The deadline for the applications was 4 p.m. on April 12.

“In the end, this is your decision,” Burgett said. “…I’m just kind of here to guide the process.”

Burgett said once the deadline passes, interviews will be set up. The board attorney will review applications to make sure they meet certain requirements and there are no conflicts of interest, she said.

“Then we just set up the interviews, and that is up to you all, that process or the timeline of when you want to do that,” she said.

All candidates should be asked the same questions, she added, and be allowed to ask questions of the board.

The interviews will be conducted in closed sessions.

“The only part that is in open session is when you’re done deliberating and you are ready to announce the candidate that you choose,” she said. “That’s in open session. But all of your deliberations, all conversations, the documentation, you know, all of that is confidential and should be kept in closed session and probably either shredded or returned to the attorney once we get done with the applications.”

Burgett suggested the board come up with five questions to ask the candidates.

Example questions were provided.

“I looked over them, I like them,” Meek said. “I think it covers everything.”

Meek asked if they needed to approve the questions during Monday’s meeting.

Burgett said the board could do it now or in the near future.

Board member Marvin Wilson said he might have some questions of his own.

“You can think about it if you want,” Burgett said. “We want to be aligned on the questions before our first interview but you don’t have to be aligned right now.”

Board Attorney Grant Chenoweth said he can review applications over the weekend, following the next board meeting on Thursday.

“If you all want to, at the meeting on Thursday, you all could do follow-up discussion of this, of your questions, that gives you the next couple of nights to think about this and then talk Thursday about your list of questions, because you’re not doing interviews this week so you have a little bit of time to think through…,” Chenoweth said.

The board then proceeded to choose which questions to ask candidates.

Wilson asked board member Gloria Sneed if she had any questions selected.

“What are you selecting down there so we kind of know how to do this, you got anything in mind?” Wilson asked.

Sneed said Meek hadn’t gotten down to the rest of the questions yet.

“Well you could open your mouth and she would know,” Wilson said.

“Ok, number one, Gloria have you selected any?” Meek asked.

“I thought she said she needed to do number one,” Sneed said.

Chenoweth recommended letting Burgett ask question number one.

Sneed said she circled number five.

The board continued to go through the questions and decide who will ask which questions during interviews.

Burgett said she might submit a few questions and send them to the board members to review.

Meek said some people might want to be able to see the questions as they’re being asked during interviews. Burgett said that would be fine.

“If there’s no other questions, I’ll just wait until I hear from Colleen or Etta. We’ll see how many candidates we have, we’ll get your availability, we’ll get the candidate availability and then we’ll either schedule a day, or evening or afternoon or whatever you all want to do,” Burgett said.

An election for the parent representative for the Superintendent Screening Committee will be held Friday, April 14 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. A ballot will be posted on the district’s Facebook page by Friday, April 14. The nominated candidates’ names will be listed on a google form and the Lincoln County School District community can vote.

The nominee with the most votes will be announced and notified on Monday, April 17, 2023.

The Lincoln County Board of Education will meet again on Thursday, April 13 for the monthly working meeting.