A months-long search drew roughly 150 hopefuls for the district's top job, with board members naming Kenai schools chief Steve Atwater and Jim Browder, the former superintendent of a large Florida school district, as the top contenders.
The finalists will meet with city leaders, parents and teachers in January, with the board planning to make a hire by late January or early February.
The winner will step into one of the most powerful government positions in Alaska, overseeing 49,000 students and 6,500 regular employees. The district budget is more than $800 million a year.
Comeau, who has held the job since 2000, plans to retire June 30. Board president Gretchen Guess says the board is looking for a long-term replacement to run the district for seven years or more.
Meet the finalists:
JIM BROWDER
Browder, who most recently spent several tumultuous months as a senior administrator at a southwest Florida college, began his career as a high school social studies teacher in Fort Myers, he said.
Browder served as a principal at several schools, according to his resume. He became superintendent of the 82,000-student Lee County system in 2003. The district, also in southwest Florida, has an annual budget of $1.4 billion, he said.
Browder left the job in 2010 as incoming board members sought to change key policies, he said. Guess said he favors public school choice -- meaning parents can opt to send kids to charter schools, language immersion schools or non-traditional programs -- as opposed to a "neighborhood schools" program that bases enrollment solely on where families live.
"My concern was that youngsters would not benefit from a move like that," Browder said in a phone interview. Lack of school choice would isolate the poorest students, he said.
Browder was a finalist for a Las Vegas superintendent job when he was hired instead as a senior vice president at Edison State College in Fort Myers, according to his Anchorage School District application. His stay at the four-year college was a short one as faculty complained that Browder had been hired without a search and balked at his salary, according to local news reports.
"A small group of employees attempted to discredit the president and me because of our salaries and my lack of post-secondary experience," Browder wrote in his Anchorage application.
Guess said board members talked with Browder about the college job but focused more on his K-12 school performance, such as test scores he achieved despite shrinking budgets at the Lee County district.
"The board did discuss it, but focused much more on the success that he had in his district when he was a superintendent," she said.
Browder was a finalist over the summer for a superintendent job in Jackson, Tenn., and a finalist this fall for a superintendent post in Broward County, Fla., according to news reports at the time.
At 64, Browder has two adult children who both work in education, he said. One is an assistant principal and one a guidance counselor, he said.
STEVE ATWATER
Atwater first came to Alaska in the summer of 1981, working briefly as a deckhand on a crab boat called the "Ares," he said in his application.
His first teaching job came in Emmonak, where he worked with junior high and high school students, he said. "I taught everything, including French at one point."
Atwater worked as superintendent of the small, King Salmon-based Lake and Peninsula School District from 2001 to 2008 and became superintendent of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District in 2009.
Although one of the larger districts in Alaska, the Kenai schools system is a fraction of the size of Anchorage's. It serves about 9,000 students and carries a $152 million budget, he said.
Atwater is 53 and has one son who will graduate from high school this spring, he said. He started a three-year contract with the Kenai district in July, he said.
The Kenai district, which would lose its top administrator if Atwater wins the Anchorage job, issued a statement from board president Joe Arness on Thursday.
"Operations of the school district will continue without interruption until such time as a final decision is made in Anchorage, and then the KPBSD School Board will respond to whatever that decision may be," Arness said. "At this point, Dr. Atwater remains under contract to the Kenai Peninsula and will remain welcome to continue that relationship should he not be offered and accept the Anchorage Superintendent position."
No matter who gets the job, the district will likely end up paying the new superintendent more than the $165,000, plus basic benefits, that Comeau receives, board members have said.
Comeau has refused certain pay raises, according to the district.
According to their resumes, Atwater is making $140,000 at the Kenai district and Browder was most recently making $260,000 as senior vice president of operations at Edison State College. He made $170,000 a year as a schools superintendent for Lee County schools, the application says.
The school board will conduct two-hour interviews with Browder and Atwater at the beginning and end of their January visits. The candidates are scheduled to meet with Assembly members and the mayor, tour local schools and talk to district employees.
The public is invited to meetings with each candidate at the school district Education Center board room, 5530 E. Northern Lights Boulevard:
• Meet Jim Browder at 7 to 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 6
• Meet Steve Atwater at 7 to 9 p.m., Friday, Jan. 13.
Twitter updates: twitter.com/adn_kylehopkins. Call Kyle Hopkins at 257-4334 or email him at khopkins@adn.com.
Important warning about e-mails purporting to be from the adn.com staff.