Orange County Public schools want to hear from you about who should be the next superintendent for Central Florida’s largest school district. 

The school district held the first of seven community forums on Tuesday with another one slated for Wednesday night to update the community on the search and get input on what type of person the school district should be looking for. 

Current superintendent Dr. Barbara Jenkins announced last month that she would be retiring at the end of the year after being at the helm of one of the nation’s largest school districts for a decade. 

The superintendent search committee plans to hold a forum in every district represented by a school board member. 

In the hour-long forums, district officials want to hear from people about which qualifications they want to see in the next superintendent and also what they see as OCPS' strengths, needs and challenges.

Chief Communications Officer for the district Scott Howat says officials want to hear from everyone in this process. 

“I think we want to hear from anyone in the community, not just, well obviously parents, students and employees, but we want to hear from our business partners. We want to hear from interested parties people that really care about public education in our community and want to see us continue what we’ve had under our current superintendent, Dr. Barbara Jenkins, and move forward in a very positive way,” he said. 

Orange County mom of four Jen Cousins attended the first forum Tuesday. She's become very involved in school board matters during the pandemic, and she says she was glad to see the district bring the issue directly to communities by holding them at high schools. 

“I think it’s great! I think it’s great that they’ve opened this up to the public, I think that a lot of times they only hear the loud people and not the people who are actually putting thought into what needs to happen, so I think it’s great,” Cousins said. 

Here is a list of the community forums: 

• March 22: University High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• March 23: Edgewater High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• March 28: Freedom High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• March 29: West Orange High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• March 30: Jones High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• March 31: Apopka High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• April 5: Lake Nona High school, 6 p.m. to 7 p.m.
• Community/Business Partners: March 28, 12 p.m. to 2 p.m.
• Superintendent's Student Advisory Council: April 5, 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. 

The district will also be sending out an online survey for people to fill out starting on March 28, which will be open till April 8.

The district hopes to have a new superintendent hired by June. More info about the process can be found here.