BATON ROUGE — The East Baton Rouge Parish School Board scheduled a special meeting for Tuesday night to solicit additional candidates for its vacant superintendent's position and has already set aside Wednesday for interviews and a news conference with its new leader.

The district is under pressure to name a new superintendent to replace Sito Narcisse last winter, whose contract wasn't extended. Interim leader Adam Smith has been leading the system since then, and his contract expires at midnight Tuesday.

A brief notice from the board says it will meet at 6 p.m. Tuesday — six hours before Smith's term expires. It says it will take applications until noon Wednesday, and then conduct interviews with the new candidate or candidates at 4 p.m. Wednesday. 

A special meeting to name a new superintendent will follow, and then after the appointment the new superintendent will meet with the media, the notice says.

The scheduling announcement came just before a meeting between Louisiana's schools superintendent and board leaders amid his concerns that East Baton Rouge students don't fare as well as others in the state and that the school board doesn't spend enough money on instruction.

Cade Brumley wrote to the East Baton Rouge School Board on Friday, noting the looming deadline to name a new local superintendent. Several attempts to name a new leader have failed, and two finalists took their names out of the running last week. The other withdrew on July 6.

"Your stalemate has created uncharted territory for students in EBR and Louisiana," Brumley wrote to the nine board members. He said he was prepared to "exercise authority" but didn't lay out what he would do beyond notify the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education about the vacancy.

"My allegiance lies with students who deserve much better than the collective leadership you're providing," Brumley wrote. "I suspect most of you agree with my assessment — I'm confident our community does."

Because Monday's meeting would not include enough school board members to constitute a quorum, Brumley and the board leaders can meet in private. 

East Baton Rouge is seeking to replace Narcisse after voting last winter to not renew his contract. Smith, for a second time this decade, stepped in to the role temporarily. Four board members last week issued a statement saying Smith hadn't performed well enough as a temporary superintendent to win the job outright. 

Brumley's letter last week said student performance in East Baton Rouge schools lagged the state average, its teacher vacancy race is higher than average and its spending less than 70 percent of its revenue on instruction indicates a lack of emphasis on classrooms.

He also noted the state has previously had to appoint a special master for special education and reminded the board that start-of-the-school-year transportation programs created chaos that went beyond the school community.