About 40 community members attended a public input session Tuesday night to share with the Baldwin County Board of Education what qualities they expect in a new superintendent of schools.

Student focus, integrity and fairness topped the list of traits a new schools chief must bring to Baldwin County. Residents also urged the board to hire someone who could unite the community and build support for the county’s public school system.

“We need someone who’s a uniter. You can’t have someone who’s too conservative or too liberal,” one man said. “I think a uniter is going to be one of the keys.”

One woman stressed to board members that a superintendent must be knowledgeable of the system’s cultural diversity and understand issues that surround its large population of special education students.

In a county that is nearly half African-American and half white, we expect the successful candidate will do his or her homework and know what challenges come with the job.

As we see it, community members who attended Tuesday’s forum are right on target. While we applaud the board for holding a public input session, we urge members to follow through with at least one more public input session as it continues to search for a new superintendent.

School board vice chairman Harold Simmons told the audience that after discussing it with other board members the board likely would schedule another session. That’s a wise idea and one that we strongly support.

It would be great if each of our five board members held public input forums in their respective districts. Of course that could mean that the board’s consultants wouldn’t be able to attend each session, but that shouldn’t be reason enough to dismiss the idea. Board members easily could report public comments they collect back to the consultants and be sure they’re taken into account as the search continues. Ultimately, hiring a new superintendent is a decision that rests with the school board, not a consulting firm that is working to solicit applicants.

The board must take the public comments it heard Tuesday to heart as resumes cross the desk for consideration. After all, it’s the public for which the board works and the consultants are just that — consultants.

The school board must have the confidence to hold public forums. It should let its consultants locate the best-qualified candidates, and then its members should make up their collective minds, since the board, not the search firm, is our community’s final voice in the matter.

One thing is indisputable: the board must do all it can to hire the best-qualified person to lead our public school system into the future.

And if what Simmons said holds true then we won’t have anything to worry about.

“I expect nothing but the best for Baldwin County. Our community has more to offer than a lot of cities,” he told community members.