OCALA, FL (352today.com) – The Marion County Public School Board will have a work session on Thursday, Dec. 18, 2025, to talk about the Marion County Public Schools superintendent search job description, when modifications will be made to the existing description.

The school board held a work session on Monday, Dec. 1, 2025, with their consultant for the superintendent job search, Hazard, Young, Attea and Associates’ Dr. Bill Adams and Stacey Adams, who will once again be joining the school board for their first work session in January.

The job description will be addressed first during the Dec. 18 work session, followed by addressing the superintendent search, and what comes next including a conversation about the school board’s data. The board will then engage with the consultant as to what the next steps may look like in the process, including the possibility of an adjusted timeline.

The board agreed that they would like to remove two lines regarding compensation in the job description for the time being, and if they intend to add it back in the future, that would be communicated to the consultant.

The posting for the job will have a summary description of the school district and community based on the information that was provided, said Stacey Admas, HYA. A compensation range will be included because it’s needed as part of the recruitment process.

Not so fast

The initial timeline included an advertisement published for the nationwide superintendent search by the consultant for the months of December and January.

“I understand that this is the practice and the system that you use, I personally don’t feel comfortable without a job description,” said MCPS Board Vice Chair Lori Conrad. “At this moment, I’m leaning toward pausing and getting our job description together and working on that to move forward.”

Board members Rev. Eric Cummings and Nancy Thrower both agreed with Conrad, and they were also in favor of pausing posting the job for the nationwide search temporarily, until the board has determined what the job description will be.

Marion County Public Schools Assistant Superintendent Ben Whitehouse will provide a high-level summary of Progress Monitoring Assessment 2 data, with the PM2 testing beginning Dec. 1 at some of the school district’s sites, and the bulk starting Dec. 2. The objective is to have all of the PM2 testing done in the next two weeks. The board will be provided with a year-over-year comparison from a high-level stance at the next meeting, he said.

“I’m completely in favor of pausing right now,” said Dr. Allison Campbell, District No. 1, who wanted to see what the school district’s data looks like, and how the PM2 and PM3 data looks in comparison to previous years.  “Honestly, if our data is headed in the right direction, then I have no problem moving forward with the current situation. If we don’t operate from a position of being completely student data-driven in making decisions based on that, I struggle with us saying let’s pause permanently. I know that’s a big conversation to have right now, that we can’t have today because PM2 is just starting.”

The school district is seeing a lot of positive energy, and it’s a feeling that’s been palpable, with staff embracing the idea of “one team, one mission,” said Campbell.

“Everything we do, has to be student data-driven,” said Campbell. “I’m in full favor of us pausing today and then determining when we have the job description conversation, how long we want to pause.”

Moving forward

The board received an email on Oct. 8, 2025, from the consultant regarding the timeline that had been discussed during the workshop that they did with HYA, including the intent to publish an advertisement for the nationwide superintendent search for the months of December and January, with an application deadline of Jan. 30, 2026, said MCPS Board Chair Dr. Sarah James.

Reviewing the data that’s available is important to the board’s next steps, said Nancy Thrower, board member for District No. 4.

“I want to be married to students’ success, not a timeline, if it makes sense to adjust it as we proceed,” said Thrower.

Board Member Rev. Cummings, District No. 3, echoed those sentiments of Thrower, whose concern is with students’ outcomes and not the timeline.