BAKER, La. (AP) — Three finalists are scheduled for interviews Saturday to be the next leader of a small suburban Baton Rouge school district.
The Baker City School Board culled the finalists from eight applicants seeking to run the district, which has more than 1,100 students, The Advocate reported.
The last superintendent, Herman Brister, Sr., abruptly resigned in September after five years in the post.
The applicants are Tamara Johnson, a Central Office administrator for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system; Calvin Nicholas, former principal of East Iberville Elementary and High School in Plaquemine; and De’Ette Perry, interim Baker superintendent since Jan. 1.
The board plans to pick its next superintendent from the three finalists at its May 4 meeting.
The interview sessions are being organized by search consultant Michael Faulk, a former superintendent himself and the executive director of the Louisiana Association of School Superintendents.
Perry, who has 31 years of education experience, has been with Baker since it broke from the East Baton Rouge Parish school system in 2003. She started as principal of Baker Heights Elementary and has held a succession of Central Office jobs in Baker, most recently as the district’s K-12 instructional supervisor.
During her 21 years in education, Johnson has worked in Zachary and for the Louisiana Department of Education. She has spent the past five years as an executive director for school leadership in the East Baton Rouge district, leading an overhaul of the district’s alternative schools.
Nicholas once served as assistant principal of Baker High from 2013 to 2015. From 2015 until he submitted his retirement notice last October, Nicholas had been principal at the high school in East Iberville.
