Springfield, IL (CAPITOL CITY NOW) – He’s helped hire all kinds of staff in the Springfield Public School District in his time on the board.

But Ken Gilmore, who talked with reporters when board vice president Buffy Lael-Wolf was unavailable Friday,  says selecting a superintendent to replace the retiring Jennifer Gill at the end of June was a new one for him.

And, Gilmore says, it was a detailed process, because part of it involved 18 different focus groups.

“The [Illinois Association of School Boards] actually had rubrics that they boiled down that information, and gave us scores, and then comments,” said Gilmore.  “They boiled all that down so we were able to actually see across the board and compare apples to apples with all the different candidates.”

Gilmore says he believes that current assistant superintendent of family, community, and school leadership, Terrence Jordan, checks all the boxes.

“[Johnson] really rose to the top in all the categories, and had the highest scores for the ratings that were given from the community groups and the district groups, as well as the school board members when we were meeting, those areas of strength that we found to be the most important when we began the search,” said Gilmore.

According to a district spokesperson, a vote will not be taken at Tuesday night’s school board meeting on Jordan’s hiring. That will happen, officials say, once the district’s legal counsel has had a chance to work on a potential contract.