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Education board sends 3 superintendent candidates to Sandoval

After pumping nearly $400 million in new spending into the state's education system, Gov. Brian Sandoval now must choose who will oversee the instruction of more than 450,000 public school students in Nevada.

His options: Two men who applied to be state superintendent of public instruction after finding the job posting on Craigslist, or a Nevada Department of Education official who has served as the interim superintendent since August.

A fourth individual applied for the position as well but failed to meet minimum qualifications, namely, reach the age of 21 and possess the "knowledge and ability" to carry out state laws and regulations.

"We don't deem the lack of response as a lack of interest," said Elaine Wynn, president of the State Board of Education.

"We see it more as a validation that we're on track, we're doing well and that there is continuity in all of the work that we've begun," Wynn added during a board meeting Thursday.

According to state law, the board must submit a list of three candidates to the governor for his consideration for the state superintendent.

With only three qualified applications to consider Thursday, the board quickly voted to send all three candidates to Sandoval.

"I don't have a strong desire for whoever's selected to suddenly change direction," said board Vice President Mark Newburn.

"If you get a change of leadership and they go a different direction, that often results in a regime change in all the top levels of the department of education and I've watched that occur twice in my tenure," he added. "I just don't think we can afford another top-level management purge."

In August, Dale Erquiaga, a childhood friend of Sandoval's, vacated the superintendency to take a prominent role in the governor's office.

Steve Canavero, a former deputy superintendent and former director of the state's charter school authority, stepped in to fill the job temporarily but submitted his application for the permanent position in December.

With no funding to advertise the position, the state government's human resource division had advertised the vacancy on its website.

A spokeswoman for the department said it also forwarded the job description to CareersInGovernment.com, a subscription service that posts to social media sites, including LinkedIn, and online job boards, such as Job2Careers and ZipRecruiter.

The position also appeared on the free classified section of the Reno site on Craigslist, which attracted applications from Tom Verde, a part-time administrator at the Career College of Northern Nevada, and Scott Groach, owner and founder of a tutoring company scheduled to open in South Lake Tahoe, California, this month.

Their application will join Canavero's when Sandoval considers all three for his eventual appointment.

"We have done our statutory requirement and passed on three candidates to the governor," Wynn said. "I have complete confidence that he will select the most qualified candidate."

In 2013, not long after Sandoval first appointed Wynn to serve as president of the state board, she publicly lobbied the Clark County School Board to conduct a national search to find a replacement for outgoing Superintendent Dwight Jones.

Asked why she would not expect that same breadth of a search at the state level, especially considering the sweeping education reforms that Sandoval signed into law last year, Wynn discredited any comparison of the Nevada Department of Education to the Clark County School District.

"Comparing the state position to a superintendent of the fifth-largest school district, their functions and roles are completely different. The natures of the job are not comparable at all," Wynn said.

"There's clearly a difference of authorization and work and definition of responsibilities."

Contact Neal Morton at nmorton@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0279. Find him on Twitter: @nealtmorton

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