Kentucky Board of Education looks to its Attorney for Interim Commish

...but not Kevin Noland this time.

This from the Courier-Journal:

State board hires temp education commissioner

With less than four weeks to go before state Education Commissioner Terry Holliday retires, the Kentucky Board of Education has named Kevin Brown to be interim commissioner as the board continues to search for a permanent replacement.

Kevin Brown

Brown, an associate commissioner with the Kentucky Department of Education, will begin Sept. 1 and will run the department until a new commissioner is named. He will earn the equivalent of $150,000 a year, the board decided.

Meanwhile, the board narrowed down a list of 44 applicants for the commissioner job down to 15, saying the board may interview those 15 after getting more information on the candidates from the search firm.

The board met in executive session Wednesday to go through applications, then voted in open session to bring Brown on to lead the state education department on a temporary basis.

The education commissioner job was posted in mid-June, a couple months after Holliday announced he would retire Aug. 31 after nearly six years leading the state’s education initiatives.

Board members had hoped to choose a new commissioner before Holliday retired, but never ruled out the possibility of putting an interim in place.

The board will meet Aug. 14 and 15 in Louisville to conduct the candidate interviews. It is unclear how many will be interviewed in the end.

Whoever is chosen as the next education commissioner will have to learn to work with a new and as-yet unknown state governor, as Gov. Steve Beshear is term-limited and will be replaced in December.

Florida-based search firm Greenwood-Asher and Associates is leading the candidate search effort.