Cincinnati's public school district wants to remain mum on candidates' names for a new superintendent until the board has made its final selection early this fall, board president Rick Williams said Tuesday.

        Mr. Williams said privacy will attract the best candidates, who might balk at applying to run this 42,000-student district if their names were made public.

        Yet the board's attorney, John Concannon, said any resumes submitted for the position are public record.

        Mr. Williams said he hopes the public will trust the school board and its search firm, Proact Search Inc. of Milwaukee, to find the best person to replace Steven Adamowski. Mr. Adamowski announced in June that he's leaving the district to take a faculty position at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he'll begin teaching in September.

        “Seven people — that's where this decision is,” Mr. Williams said. “We deserve the right to control this decision.”

        Board member Harriet Russell agreed that candidate confidentiality will aid the search.

        “We feel we must protect the confidence of the applicants until the applicants are ready to notify their present employers,” Ms. Russell said.

        Board members from other cities have mixed feelings about the search results and the pool of candidates offered up by Nancy Noeske, president of Proact Search, when she served them as a search consultant.

        Mary Belle McCorkle, board president of Tucson (Ariz.) Unified School District, said the board was pleased with Ms. Noeske's work in 2000 when she recruited the district's current superintendent, Estanislado “Stan” Paz. Ms. Noeske was a partner at the time with Overton Consulting of Mequon, Wis.

        Denver Public Schools was not so lucky with its 1999 search.

        Ms. Noeske helped recruit at least 30 candidates for the Denver Public Schools chief, which led to the board's decision to hire former Superintendent Chip Zullinger. Nine months later, the board bought out Mr. Zullinger's contract.

        “When things did not work out with the superintendent after only nine months and we agreed he should move on, I did not hear from Ms. Noeske as to why things did not work out,” said Denver's school board president Elaine Gantz Berman.

        “That was a bit surprising to me.”

        Board members in other cities, however, echoed the need for privacy when recruiting candidates.

        “Had that not been the process, we may not have gotten some of the candidates,” said Alex Matthews, board member of Pittsburgh Public Schools. Mr. Matthews was board president during a 1999 superintendent search conducted by Ms. Noeske.

        In Cincinnati, public input will be sought through phone polling.

        Brewster Rhoads, a local political strategist and veteran of many levy campaigns, said the process doesn't need to be as open as past superintendent searches.

        “(Board members) are on the same page as far as the qualities of the person they're looking for and the work this person needs to do,” he said.

        Board members set Aug. 23 as a deadline to receive applications for the local and national search. Interviews will be conducted in early September.

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