RACINE - It's been at least a year since any of the three finalists for superintendent of the Racine Unified School District has held a job running a school district.

All three were bought out of their contracts at their last jobs.

On Sunday, the Unified School Board announced the names of the three finalists for the superintendent job.

At least one board member said it was a "really easy decision" to pick the three finalists - Craig Bangtson, Barbara Moore Pulliam and Carlinda Purcell.

Their resumes and lists of accomplishments fill several pages. Their years of experience impressed the board. All three interviewed well, board members said.

The board picked the three from a group of eight candidates that had been interviewed over two days last weekend.

The district hired a Milwaukee search firm - called "headhunters" in the business world - to help find a new superintendent.

All three finalists had improved academic achievement in their previous jobs, a key consideration for the job in Racine, board members said.

The three have another thing in common - they resigned from their previous superintendent jobs after negotiating buyouts with their school boards.

"There are two sides to every story and this is why we bring them back, to have them address the community's concerns," said Sue Kutz, Unified School Board vice president and chair of the board's search committee.

When asked if any of the finalists had been through anything similar to former superintendent Tom Hicks' departure, Kutz and others said it would be hard to find someone who hadn't.

Hicks resigned in August after a controversial contract with a private consulting firm raised concerns among district staff, board members and community members.

Kutz said board members asked the finalists to disclose anything that might be controversial.

"When you're looking for an urban superintendent, there's going to be stuff. You expect to have somebody who is honest and open," Kutz said. "Can they have an explanation for what happened?

"Then it is up to the board whether they're going to accept that."

Kutz said the starting salary for the candidate they choose will be close to Hicks' $144,000 salary plus benefits. That will be negotiated later.

A tough search made tougher

Educational experts decry the difficulty of finding strong superintendent candidates with a shrinking pool of experienced leaders and the highly political nature of running a public school district, especially an urban one.

Under the public's watchful eye and with the ease of finding information online, it can make the search for a leader even more difficult, Kutz said.

It didn't take long before School Board members here had to answer questions about the three finalists' past experience in other communities.

Resume discrepancies

Craig Bangtson has been retired since 2004.

Within the past two years, Bangtson, 57, dropped out as a finalist for superintendent of the Hernando County (Fla.) schools after a newspaper confronted him about some discrepancies in his resume.

The resume he submitted in Racine is different from the one he apparently submitted in Florida, which was different from a resume he submitted in Arkansas, according to reports in the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times.

Bangtson's resume said he'd worked in the Bartow County schools longer than he actually did. He'd left the job at the board's request earlier than his resume indicated, the paper reported.

At the time, a Times reporter pointed out the discrepancies and asked Bangtson to respond.

The paper reported that Bangtson acknowledged the discrepancies in his resume. He then withdrew his name from the list of finalists for the Florida job.

He's been a finalist for jobs in other districts in the past two years.

Tom Marshall, an education reporter at the St. Petersburg Times, said he has received calls periodically from papers around the country asking him about his stories about Bangtson's resume.

"Our school board in Hernando County was less willing to accept that there had been an acrimonious departure in Georgia," Marshall said. "A negative experience was what had been obscured on his resume. It seemed to them like it was intentional."

It has since been changed. He worked in the Georgia district for one year.

Bangtson could not be reached for comment Sunday. Messages were left at the Racine hotel where he was staying.

Mixed review

Within the past two weeks, The Atlanta Journal Constitution has reported that the Clayton County (Ga.) school board is trying to recruit Barbara Pulliam to take her old job back.

Pulliam resigned as superintendent there in July, without giving a reason, after 3 1/2 years leading Clayton schools, the paper reported.

She took the job in 2004, when the district was on probation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, according to the paper. She is the first black woman to hold the job in that district.

At the time of her resignation, some credited her with getting the district off probation. Others said then she complicated the situation because of friction with board members, according to the paper.

Pulliam also was criticized for low test scores, but lauded for establishing an International Baccalaureate program, according to the paper.

Pulliam could not be reached for comment Sunday. Messages were left at the Racine hotel where she was staying.

Time to move on

Reached Sunday afternoon at the Racine hotel where she was staying, finalist Carlinda Purcell said she was asked to resign as superintendent of Montgomery County (Ala.) public schools by the board that she served under for a little less than two years. Purcell, like Pulliam, was the first black woman to hold that job in that district.

Purcell, who was unanimously approved by the board that hired her in 2004, said her relationship with the school board started going downhill very early on, "even though I got a lot of things accomplished," because of some board members who wanted to run the district.

"At the end of the day you look at, 'What is good for me and what is good for the children?' I needed to move on and I think they needed to move on," Purcell said. "There was a call for change, but they were not ready for the change that I was recommending."

Time is of the essence

When it comes to picking a new superintendent, time is of the essence, said Kutz, who chaired the board's search committee.

The board wants to act quickly, so as to find a superintendent who can start working July 1. Current board members also would like to pick the new superintendent before the new board is sworn in two weeks from today, Kutz said.

"I think we need to because we're the ones who have carried the process from start to finish," Kutz said.

Two of the three new board members will have a chance to meet with the finalists Monday. The third, Melvin Hargrove, has been part of the interview process since joining the board late last year.

Outgoing board member Russ Carlsen said he would be happy with any of the three finalists as the next leader of the school district, which continues to struggle academically when measured against comparable school districts in Wisconsin.

"All of them improved the financial status of the districts and all of them improved student achievement and that's what was most important to us," Carlsen said.

While School Board members were impressed with the three finalists' credentials, they did not raise any major concerns about the finalists' prior experiences.

It takes little more than a Google search to find numerous stories about the candidates and their professional lives over the past few years - where they've applied for jobs, what happened at their last jobs.

All three have been on the market looking for and interviewing for jobs.

The board will hold separate interviews with the finalists on Tuesday before picking a permanent replacement for Hicks, who ran the district for six years.

"They're highly credentialed people and we've asked them back for interviews. You need to give these people an opportunity to explain themselves, rather than just making assumptions," Kutz said.

If You Go

WHAT: Three finalists for the next superintendent of the Racine Unified School District will meet in an open forum with interested community members during a community reception and question-and-answer session

WHEN: 6 to 9:30 p.m., April 14

WHERE: Golden Rondelle, 1525 Howe St.