TALLAHASSEE Fla.
The chancellor who oversees Florida’s elementary and secondary schools and her predecessor are among seven semifinalists in the State Board of Education’s nationwide search for a new education commissioner.
The board unanimously voted to winnow a list of 29 applicants Tuesday. The semifinalists, including K-12 Chancellor Cheri Pierson Yecke, will be invited for interviews during the next meeting Sept. 17-18 in Tampa before the board selects a set of finalists.
Four other semifinalists also have strong Florida ties, starting with former K-12 Chancellor Jim Warford, now executive director of the Florida Association of School Administrators.
Others with Florida connections are former Hillsborough County School Superintendent Earl Lennard, now an adjunct professor at the University of South Florida in Tampa; Joseph Marinelli, a district superintendent in Newark, N.Y., who once served as an assistant to Orange County’s school superintendent, and Eric Smith, a senior vice president with the College Board in New York City, who once was a top school administrator in Volusia County.
The remaining candidates are William Harner, deputy to the chief executive office of Philadelphia’s school district, and former Colorado Education Commissioner William Moloney.
“There was focus on trying to find people with current and past ties to Florida,” said Nancy Noeske, president of PROACT Search Inc., the board’s consulting firm based in Milwaukee, Wis.
