Joseph A. Hairston, who resigned last month after a stormy tenure as school superintendent in an Atlanta suburb, has emerged as the leading candidate to head Baltimore County's 106,000-student school system.
Members of a county search committee, including the school board president and vice president, met with Clayton County, Ga., school officials yesterday to discuss Hairston's job performance, according to sources in Baltimore County and Georgia.
Search committee members who went to Atlanta to meet with Hairston, and his former colleagues, could present their findings to the school board at a meeting this weekend, Baltimore County school sources said.
A favorable report could put Hairston, a former Prince George's County principal and area superintendent, on track to become Baltimore County's first black superintendent.
"Dr. Hairston is a very capable person, and if Baltimore County were fortunate enough to attract him, it would be a significant coup for the county," said Alvin Thornton, a former chairman of the Prince George's County Board of Education who worked with Hairston at Potomac and Suitland high schools, and when Hairston was an area superintendent. "The county would really benefit from the long years of experience he's had."
Hairston, 53, did not return phone calls to his home yesterday. Since his resignation as chief of schools in the 45,000-student Clayton County system last month, he has been working for that system as a consultant, said interim Superintendent Dan Colwell.
The reasons for Hairston's departure Jan. 10 after five years at the helm of the Clayton County system are unclear. "It was sudden," Colwell said. "I don't know that I can explain it. It is kind of a mystery."
While chief of the Clayton County schools, Hairston was known as an innovative educator who held teachers accountable for student achievement, sources said. High school students' SAT scores rose an average of 22 points in 1998, the largest increase in any metropolitan Atlanta school system that year.
As superintendent, Hairston focused on bringing technology to every classroom, making the Clayton County school system a national leader in that regard, said Steve Holmes, the school system's technology coordinator.
All 3,000 Clayton County teachers have classroom computers, Holmes said, and each classroom has at least four computers for student use.
Tackling achievement gap
