A recently-completed survey shows that those in Covington County have a definite profile in mind of what they’d like the system’s next school superintendent to be like, said Hank Jones of the Alabama Association of School Boards.

The AASB was hired to help the system in its selection process, and on Tuesday Jones presented the results of the community input survey.

Survey participation was very good, Jones said.

“There were 236 who started the survey; 235 finished it,” he said. “Based on population, that’s a great number. Comparatively, I’d say that’s more than participated in the Tuscaloosa and Madison County search.”

Of those 235 completing the survey, more than half were CCS employees, 30 percent were identified as parents and 18 percent were identified as community members.

“These responses are designed to assist you in identifying what you want in the next superintendent,” Jones told the board. “And based on these responses, people believe your system is headed in the right direction, and I think with these results, you as a board, can head in the right direction in choosing a new superintendent.”

Participants believed candidates should have an educational background, hold a master’s level degree and have administrative and management experience. Residents didn’t believe candidates should have previous superintendent experience and were evenly split on whether or not candidates should be hired from outside the system versus within the system.

The application deadline is April 18, and Jones said he expects a candidate pool of 10 to 15 applicants.

The AASB will chose five finalists from the applications by April 23 and present those at an April 30 meeting.

“I’m going to bring you five people who don’t only want to be a superintendent,” he said. “They want to be the next Covington County Schools superintendent.”

Jones said he will provide board members with sample question packets to help them determine the interview format. The interviews, which are tentatively scheduled to begin May 6, will be open to the public.

In other business, the board:

• adopted the entire list of state-adopted language arts textbooks for the 2013-2014 school year;

• voted to sell numerous items of surplus property;

• voted to hold summer school pending state approval, with each school setting its own dates;

• to accept the retirement resignation of Betty S. Bryan, W.S. Harlan teacher, effective at the end of this school year.