By Shelby Stewart
Staff Writer
During the special meeting on April 28, the Brandon Board of Education voted 7-0 to move forward with second round interviews for three superintendent candidates. Each board member said who they would like to hear more from, and the board voted to take the top three.
The candidates moving forward are Daniel Gilbertson, William Kalmar, and Lara Dixon. All seven board members wanted to hear more from Gilbertson, six board members wanted to hear more from Kalmar, and four board members wanted to hear more from Dixon.
The permanent position has been open since October of 2020 when Matt Outlaw stepped down, and since then the district has had two interim superintendents. The current interim is Dr. Gary Richards, who began in February and will be with the district until the end of June.

“The Brandon Board of Education asked three candidates to continue onto the final stage of our process to hire our next superintendent,” said board president Diane Salter. “The board felt that each of these candidates had significant qualities that will make our school district better. We are very excited to hear more from Dr. Dixon, Dr. Kalmar and Mr. Gilbertson.”
Three members of the board will be conducting site visits for all three of the candidates in their current school districts, and following that, there will be second round interviews on May 17, 19 and 20 at 7 p.m., and there will be an opportunity for public feedback. The board will then meet on May 24 to decide which candidate they would like to hire, or if they would like to start over and not hire any of the potential candidates.
Currently, Gilbertson is the superintendent of Crosswell-Lexington Community Schools, Kalmar is the superintendent of Almont Community Schools, and Dixon is the principal of Athens High School in Troy. All three candidates’ first round interviews and resumes are available for the public to view at brandonschooldistrict.org/index.php/superintendent-search.