The East Tallahatchie School District Board of Trustees, in a split vote, has offered the job of district superintendent to south Mississippi native Johnnie L. Vick, The Sun-Sentinel has learned from multiple sources.
No official announcement has been made, and when reached out to by telephone Friday, three school board members declined to confirm or deny and two others could not be reached for comment.
"We're supposed to be releasing something to the press real soon," said Education District 9 Trustee Darrell W. Neal. "I don't know how a lot of stuff gets out. ... We're going to send something to the paper."
ED 6 Trustee Lincoln "Buddy" Smith was more straightforward, saying, "I don't care to speak on it."
Likewise, ED 5 Trustee Raymond Radcliff refused to comment.
On June 4, ED 10 Trustee and Board of Trustees President Bryant Watson indicated that the board would not make their selection for superintendent public until final details could be hammered out.
The new superintendent would officially assume the responsibilities of the job on July 1.
ETSD hired the Mississippi School Boards Association to conduct a recent superintendent search after third-year super Dr. Darron Edwards announced in January that he would not return when his contract expires June 30.
MSBA advertised the position on its website and then accepted and vetted information submitted by 13 applicants.
After MSBA presented their findings to the school board on May 17, the trustees whittled down the list of hopefuls to four finalists. Those four men were interviewed on Monday, June 14, after which the board reportedly voted to offer the job to Vick.
Vick, 55, a native of Smithdale, located in Amite County in southwest Mississippi, is a graduate of Liberty High School, Southwest Mississippi Community College and the University of Southern Mississippi, where in 1988 he received a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and Management.
According to his LinkedIn profile, for 15 years Vick worked in retail management with J.C. Penney, Stage/Goody's and Walmart before deciding on a career in education.
He went back to school, and in 2006 he received a master's degree in history teacher education from Delta State University, an educational specialist degree in educational administration and supervision in 2008 and is presently working on his doctorate in educational administration and supervision.
From 2008 to 2016, he served as an adjunct history professor at Coahoma Community College in Clarksdale.
According to the McComb Enterprise-Journal newspaper, Vick spent 5½ years as a high school teacher, then four years — from 2010-2014 — as principal of I.T. Montgomery Elementary School in Mound Bayou in Bolivar County. There, under his leadership, the school improved from a Mississippi Department of Education state accountability rating of F to B in four years.
In May 2014, he was hired as superintendent of the North Bolivar Consolidated School District, where he was selected from among 13 applicants in a superintendent search led by the MSBA.
In June 2016, Vick resigned as North Bolivar superintendent to accept the superintendent's position at South Pike School District in Magnolia. Pike County is adjacent to Vick's home county of Amite.
In 2019, the South Pike school board, in a 3-2 split vote, opted not to renew Vick's contract.
South Pike's state accountability rating was D in 2017, dropped to an F in 2018 but rebounded to a D in 2019.
For the past two years, Vick has been principal at Leland High School in Washington County and is a dual enrollment instructor for Mississippi Delta Community College.
