Seven candidates have applied for superintendent job

No superintendent candidates filed applications last week and only one of the seven who submitted resumes earlier this month lives in Florida.

The candidates for the Hernando County superintendent's position so far have come from Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts and Kentucky - and one from Pasco County.

"A lot of Florida candidates have the understanding of the way public records work down here," said Paul Carland, the attorney for the Hernando County School Board. "It goes public immediately when they apply, so it's not unusual for Florida folks to wait until the last minute."

The application process officially began Oct. 1 and will end Oct. 30.

Interim Superintendent Sonya Jackson has said she is interested in applying for the job.

Arnold Spadafora has lived in San Antonio since his retirement in 2008. He most recently served as associate superintendent of schools in Schenectady, N.Y.

Nearly all of his education experience was in New York. The only exception was a two-year stint as principal at a high school in Bennington, Vt.

He could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

The other candidates:

• John R. Phillips most recently was director of university and school district partnerships at Claflin University in Orangeburg, S.C. He left that post in June.

• Wayne M. Talley is the assistant superintendent of Avery County Schools in Newland, N.C.

• S. Jayne Risen Morgenthal was most recently superintendent of the Elizabeth Public School District in Elizabethtown, Ky.

• Art Stellar most recently served as superintendent at Taunton Public Schools in Taunton, Mass. Previously, he was a superintendent at four other school districts from Georgia to Oklahoma. In 1995, he was acting superintendent for Boston Public Schools.

• Stephen Anthony Stohla was superintendent at Brookfield Local Schools in Brookfield, Ohio.

• Sharnissa Dunlap-Parker is the site director of the teacher certification program at the Kenosha Regional Center at Concordia University in Mequon, Wis.