Pinellas school board interviews three candidates for next superintendent

In less than a week, Pinellas County parents and staff will know who the district's next superintendent will be. This comes as current superintendent Michael Grego gets ready to retire. In the meantime, three finalists went into interviews with the school board on Wednesday.

All three finalists were chosen by the school board. Pinellas chief academic officer Kevin Hendrick is the one internal candidate among the finalists, having worked in the district administration for several years.

When Hendrick ran North East High School he turned a "D" rated school into an "A" in just a few years.  

"All of that was built around team work and that culture and climate trumps everything else," Hendrick told the board.  

Also up for consideration is Denver Public Schools deputy superintendent Michael Ramirez, a former social studies teacher who had administrative experience in Broward County before relocating to Denver.

Ramirez has experience in implementing the "progress monitoring" model Florida is moving to next school year – of testing throughout the year instead of one at the end.  

"I’m someone grounded in, sometimes the old coach in me comes out, I need to know what the score is, how we are progressing through, so an accountability system in place that has progress monitoring," Ramirez told the board.  

Finally, Marion County Schools area superintendent Ann Hembrook is also in the running. She is a former elementary school teacher with administrative experience in Clark County, Nevada and Orange County, Florida, before moving to Ocala.

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"One of the things you’ll learn about me is that I have that laser focus on student success, but I also have a very strategic approach in how I lead," she told board members.  

After interviewing with the school board as a group and attending a community meet and greet on Wednesday, the finalists will spend Thursday doing interviews with individual school board members.

Then, based on these interviews the board will meet on May 17 to select a new superintendent. Contract negotiations will begin the next day, with the transition period beginning a couple of weeks later in June.

Back in early January, Grego announced he will be retiring at the end of the current school year, sending the district into a nationwide search for its next leader. The school board held online surveys, community forums, and support staff focus groups, not to mention countless work sessions aimed at establishing a timeline and other details.

The month-long application period began in mid-March as soon as the job listing went online. From there, the board selected semi-finalists before narrowing the group down to three finalists on May 3.

The projected start date for the new superintendent is July 1. The winning candidate will get a three-year contract with the county and a salary range between $275,000 and $305,000.