Courtesy Photo Alpena Public Schools Interim Superintendent Susan Wooden is pictured at her desk Thursday at Central Office.

ALPENA — The Alpena Public Schools Board of Education on Thursday whittled the number of candidates for district superintendent from 21 down to five.

The board did not identify any of the applicants on Thursday. The Michigan Open Meetings Act allows government job applications to be kept confidential if the applicant requests it.

It wasn’t immediately clear if any of the applicants were current APS employees.

Rich Ramsey, consultant with the Michigan Association of School Boards, whom the board hired to help with the search, initially recommended nine candidates, including six with central office experience and three with experience as a principal. Ramsey said he considered a community survey and feedback from the board when recommending candidates.

Trustees Mike Barnett and Ned Heath said they did not want to select a candidate who would use the position as a stepping stone to a superintendent’s job in another district.

The board then narrowed Ramsey’s recommendations down to four candidates with central office experience and one with experience as a principal. All of the candidates work in Michigan.

“I will be reaching out tonight to those five candidates and I will be inviting them to come to an interview with you,” Ramsey said.

Candidate names will be released to the public once all of the candidates have agreed to be interviewed, which Ramsey said could be as early as today.

The interviews are required by law to be conducted in public. They begin at 6 p.m. Monday and 5:30 p.m. Tuesday on the online platform Zoom.

Former superintendent John VanWagoner is now superintendent of Traverse City Area Schools. Susan Wooden, a retired superintendent from Beaverton, is interim superintendent. Wooden said on Thursday she did not apply for the permanent position.

Following the first round of interviews next week, the board would narrow the candidates down again to determine who would attend a second round of interviews scheduled for Sept. 3 and 4, Ramsey said.

In other business

The Alpena Public School Board of Education on Wednesday also:

* revised the calendar for the academic year to align with the first day of school, which was changed to Sept. 8 from Aug. 31. Spring break is scheduled for March 29 to April 2. June 4 is scheduled as the last day of school.