HOUSTON — The identity of a lone finalist for the Houston Independent School District's top job will soon be announced following a round of final interviews on Thursday.
The months-long search comes amid the continued threat of a state takeover.
"The board will now adjourn to closed session,” said HISD Board of Trustees president Pat Allen shortly after convening a special meeting.
Trustees went behind closed doors for final interviews with an unknown number of prospective superintendents five months after a majority of the board voted against giving interim superintendent Dr. Grenita Lathan the permanent job.
She later accepted another position outside of Houston.
"I have accepted a new position with Springfield Public Schools in Springfield, Missouri," Lathan said at a press conference in March.
Lathan took the helm of Texas’s largest district in 2018 after former superintendent Richard Carranza left for New York City.
A faction of former trustees tried to hire someone else before the plan was abandoned.
That dysfunction factored into the Texas Education Agency’s attempted takeover of the district which is also based, in large measure, on persistent underperformance of a number of schools. The outcome is still pending in court.
"We hope the person is coming in open-minded and not viewing us as adversaries but as partners,” said Houston Federation of Teachers President Jackie Anderson.
HFT represents a majority of educators in the district and was part of the community input portion of the superintendent search.
"We are in the ring with them in this fight to save our schools from the TEA takeover, to support our students and support our teachers," Anderson said. "So we just want to get to work.”
Trustees expected to vote on a lone finalist during a meeting Friday morning before publicly introducing him or her during a news conference.
Keep in mind that two state conservators overseeing part of the district could step in and halt the process but that hasn’t happened yet.