Nov. 13—HARTSELLE — The city school board says it has a competitive group of candidates for Hartselle's vacant superintendent position and plans to meet Tuesday to discuss who among the six finalists will be selected.

The board held public interviews with all finalists last week.

"I saw six confident people who are ready to take the reins of the role of superintendent in any district but, obviously, we can only pick one," board President James Joy said.

He cautioned that the board may not make a job offer by Tuesday, but Vice President Monty Vest said she's confident the board will find a qualified candidate from its finalists.

"We've had one of the strongest candidate pools of any superintendent search in this area in recent history," Vest said. "We have a tough choice."

The last two candidates — James Clemens High Principal Brian Clayton and Hartselle High School Principal Brad Cooper — interviewed for the position on Thursday and had differing opinions on educators in the classroom without traditional certification and said they would work with the school board on their strategic plan while staying within budget.

Clayton, 52, said he believes it is important for a superintendent to be willing to tackle every role in a school system.

"I think the superintendent should be in the trenches (with the teachers)," Clayton said. "I'm not past mopping a floor if that's what we have to do."

Clayton said a crucial step in providing adequate instruction to every student is following data-driven research every day.

"A lot of times, if you're not careful from a data standpoint, you get off track and you're addressing things your data doesn't need you to address," Clayton said.

Clayton said the Hartselle district was impeccable and as superintendent, he would see it stays that way while seeking other opportunities for the district on a balanced budget.

"I think it's important we try to figure out economically where we're going to go and what's needed in this community," Clayton said.

Clayton touted James Clemens' cybersecurity program and said Hartselle could benefit from a similar program.

"Our kids are being hired sometimes right out of high school," Clayton said. "We have kids that are very talented in (cybersecurity), so I think it's important to find out the needs of the community and the needs of the school system and try your best to pilot or bring in what they need."

When asked about the effectiveness of educators in the classroom without full teaching certification, Clayton said it was necessary in a time where novice teachers are rapidly leaving classrooms across the nation.

"You know, there's teachers who have passed the Praxis test and they turned out to be not so great at teaching," Clayton said. "Alternative certification is really big where I'm at right now. We've got math teachers who have straight math degrees and may not have been through the education preparation part. It's not ideal, but it's what you have to work with."

Cooper, 39, disagreed and said it was a disservice to students because teachers without full certification are not providing the best education possible.

"By us watering down the standards and allowing non-qualified teachers to be in the classroom, it just lessens the quality of the teachers we have," Cooper said. "If we let teachers in the classroom who are not qualified, then to me, that's lowering the standard of expectations for our school district and for our teachers."

Cooper said there could be detrimental long-term effects the longer non-certified teachers are in the classroom.

"Ultimately, the students don't receive the instruction they need," Cooper said. "Long term, I can see a decline in student achievement because we don't have certified teachers in the classroom."

If hired as superintendent, Cooper said he would work to recruit teachers and better broadcast the achievements of the Hartselle district.

"We have to tell our story," Cooper said. "By telling our story, others across the state and Southeast will be able to hear about that and it will pique their interest. I think we also need to be visible at recruiting fairs and we need to be active with our local colleges."

Cooper said it was important to him to be able to promote Hartselle educators to administrative roles and to hire teachers for the district who are Hartselle alumni, or as he puts it "growing from within."

"I think it's extremely important that we have great people on our staff already and it's important we give them the opportunities to lead," Cooper said. "I'm 100% for promoting from within, but we have to do a really good job of making sure we have people who are prepared to take on those new roles when they become open."

Cooper said Hartselle's reputation was second to none, but only continued efforts will assure the district maintains that reputation.

"We must continue to push the needle forward," Cooper said. "We must always stay at the forefront because if we ever stop doing that, it's easy to fall behind. ... We have to be very purposeful and strategic to make sure we grow our kids academically."

The other four finalists interviewed last week were Arab City Schools Superintendent Johnny Berry, Florence Middle School Principal Kevin Wieseman, Sparkman High Principal Chris Shaw and Hartselle Director of Operations Rocky Smith.

— wesley.tomlinson@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2438.