Is there another local candidate who can lead the EBR school district?

BATON ROUGE - Ahead of Thursday's East Baton Rouge Parish School Board meeting to decide the next superintendent, Board President Carla Powell Lewis has concerns about her colleagues' reasonings for not choosing interim Superintendent Adam Smith for the parish's top education job.

"It's very disheartening because data in support of the district is never published before September or October of the following school year. And so to say whether or not Mr. Smith has given us a six-month interview... we still have no proof of whether or not our school board has grown or not. It's disheartening because it make it appear as though we as a school board have no knowledge of curriculum-based, data-based, standard-based information," Lewis said over the phone.

Four school board members—Mark Bellue, Patrick Martin, Nathan Rust, and Emily Soulé—released a statement explaining why they did not want to vote for Smith. The board members said in their statement:

Mr. Smith had a 6-months audition for this role, so board members and the public have had ample opportunity to see what his vision is for EBR and how he executes the job. Those of us who voted for other candidates found Mr. Smith’s audition was lacking. In general, he did not appear to us to be willing to make strong, bold decisions to improve our schools.

As interim, as well as in his application, he did not show a comprehensive vision for the future that would rapidly bring 10 and 20 points of improvement to our traditional neighborhood schools

Lewis is still hoping to get Smith in the position during Thursday night's board meeting. However, if they can't make that happen, she wants to look at other local candidates.

"I am still hoping that we would be able to come to a consensus and appoint Mr. Smith to at least serve for a year as our acting superintendent. If not, I want to see if there are any other possibilities of any local candidates because we have quite a few educational leaders within our city that can lead us at least temporarily. So I hope that we will consider our local options as of tomorrow."

The same four board members who released the statement also voted for Kevin George during the July 11 meeting, but George withdrew his name on Monday. WBRZ's Mia Monet contacted Patrick Martin to ask if they will be voting for Andrea Zayas. Martin said he had "no comment."