BATON ROUGE — The state Superintendent of Education said Friday in a letter to the East Baton Rouge Parish School Board that he wants to meet with the board's leadership in the next few days to figure out a course of action to find "a solution to this unnecessary standstill" prolonged by a nearly nine-hour meeting Thursday night where a new superintendent did not emerge by the time the meeting ended 2 a.m.

"In the event you’re unwilling to select a leader on the timeline you set forth in alignment with statute, I will also be required to inform Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education of this irregularity created by you, as members of the EBR School Board," Cade Brumley said. "Further, as previously mentioned, I will be taking further action to support students."

Brumley also outlined a list of concerns he has for the board's performance, reminding them that the EBR school system falls a full letter grade in academic performance behind the state average, one-fifth of all teacher vacancies statewide are in EBR and last year's transportation logistic issues that resulted in a bus driver's strike.

The full letter can be read here.

Thursday's meeting was a regularly scheduled board meeting with a preexisting agenda. Selecting a superintendent was near the bottom. Andrea Zayas, the last remaining finalist for the job, took her name out of consideration just hours before the meeting began. 

The meeting started at 5 p.m., however, the board did not start discussing the appointment of a new superintendent until nearly 10 p.m.

Vice President of the Board, Patrick Martin, started the superintendent discussion with a call to restart the entire process and find a new superintendent to take over the job from interim Adam Smith.

Martin, from District 9, then called for another special meeting to consider the selection of a superintendent on Wednesday, one day after Smith's term is set to end.

"We received just this morning, guidance from our counsel regarding relevant laws applicable to this, which I haven't had time to fully digest and consider the ramifications of...I do think it's important for all of the board members to be present in this discussion," Martin said in response.

District 2 board member Dadrius Lanus expressed concerns about the call for a Wednesday meeting, saying that "it puts us outside of the scope of state law, which makes our board look like we are not organized in a way that makes sense."

Lanus then motioned to appoint Smith for a 30-day contract while the issues were worked out, which District 4 board member Shashonnie Steward proposed to be changed to a 90-day contract with a cancellation notice on the first day.

"I disagree with the motions for several reasons. One, it's being hazardly concocted right here as we speak. There are significant ramifications we caught one of them just now, but there are undoubtedly others. I don't know that I agree with the legal opinion or suggestion from counsel that we would have to necessarily advertise this for the whole 30 days. I don't know if that is in fact what the law says but I haven't had time to fully review," Martin said.

The motion ultimately failed with four yays and four nays, with Emily Soulé being absent from the vote, but not before nearly 2½ hours of public comment.

Things got back to the original motion to consider a superintendent by July 26. This motion also failed with four members voting for the motion and four members abstaining following 40 more minutes of public comment.

"I have to abstain from voting on this item because there is no way in the world that I could see myself being outside of compliance with state law. I'm not going to do that," Lanus said, a shared contention point the nay voters gave.

The question of whether or not the governor would have to step in to appoint someone to the role of a superintendent was not selected by Tuesday, something Martin expressed concern over.

"It is the opinion of counsel, not just my opinion but the people I confer with, there is no mechanism within state law that will allow any public official to appoint a superintendent on behalf of the school board. We could find no authority that would allow that to happen," board attorney Gwynn Shamlin said.

The meeting did not adjourn until nearly 2 a.m. 

Toward the end of the meeting, board members decided to have a special board meeting next week. The board will announce the date as soon as they can all decide on a day. 

"I will make sure that I reach out to my board members within the next 24 hours and determine who and how many of us are available and what is a preferred date," Board President Carla Powell Lewis said.