Kentucky Board of Education preparing to pick commissioner search firm

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) – The Kentucky Department of Education will receive proposals from prospective search firms that want to help find the state’s next education commissioner next week, and the state education board took steps Friday to evaluate those bids.

The Kentucky Board of Education selected a team to evaluate responses to the department’s solicitation for requests for proposals from national search firms, which was issued Dec. 20. That RFP expires 2:30 p.m. Jan. 24.

Members of the bid evaluation team are Lee Todd, Sharon Porter Robinson and Cody Pauley Johnson. They'll begin meeting to evaluate proposals Jan. 30, with oral presentations by prospective search firms scheduled for Feb. 11, Associate Commissioner Robin Kinney said during the board's special meeting Friday.

The hunt for a new commissioner comes after the state board negotiated the resignation of former Education Commissioner Wayne Lewis, who was selected for the role in October 2018 without a national search, on Dec. 12.

The search firm, once selected, will identify potential candidates to be state’s next education commissioner, meet with the Kentucky Board of Education to select finalists to interview, conduct background checks on each interviewee, and prepare written recommendations and evaluations on each potential candidate, according to the solicitation.

KDE hopes to have a new commissioner in place by July 1, Kinney said.

The board also wants feedback on what the public wants from Kentucky’s next education commissioner, unanimously approving a motion to sent out a survey to solicit input on that subject.

"When you do this and you get this input, it's important that we hear it and then we react to it," said David Karem, the board's chairman.

Lewis's negotiated departure came two days after Gov. Andy Beshear became the first governor to completely reorganize the Kentucky Board of Education, a move that’s being challenged in court by 10 of the 11 board members who were removed by the governor’s executive order.

Kevin Brown, general counsel for Jefferson County Public Schools and KDE’s former top attorney, is serving as interim education commissioner until a permanent replacement is hired. Brown, who previously served as interim commissioner in 2015, makes $200,000 per year in the interim role, and the state board stipulated that he will not be eligible to be hired as the permanent education commissioner.

Lewis’s ascent to the commissioner’s office, first on an interim basis in April 2018, came a day after Gov. Matt Bevin appointed a new slate of board members, giving his appointees complete control of the Kentucky Board of Education. He replaced former Education Commissioner Stephen Pruitt, who also negotiated his exit with the state board.

Lewis was hired as the inaugural dean of Nashville-based Belmont University’s School of Education days after his resignation.