DALTON, Ga. — After a search of more than three months, the Dalton Board of Education appears ready to hire a new superintendent.

The board of education is scheduled to name its replacement for Superintendent Jim Hawkins at a special called meeting Wednesday at 5 p.m. at Dalton City Hall. The finalists are current interim Superintendent Don Amonett and Tim Scott, Douglas County Assistant Superintendent of District Operations.

Amonett has led the system since Hawkins stepped down in July 2017 and took an unspecified role with Dalton Public Schools. The board announced Amonett and Scott as the finalists on Feb. 26 from a search that yielded 17 applicants.

“I personally believe we have two strong finalists and that the selection process has been thorough and collaborative,” board member Matt Evans said. “The board discussions have been engaging, detailed, passionate and yet very honoring of one another. We’ve received a lot of input and are taking a lot of factors into consideration in hopes of having a superintendent named on Wednesday.”

The board met in executive session Wednesday night for nearly two hours discussing the superintendent’s position. After the meeting, Chairman Rick Fromm said the board hoped to reach a consensus by Wednesday. On Thursday afternoon, the system set agendas for three days of board meetings from Monday through Wednesday.

The board has a regularly scheduled work session and called meeting on Monday at City Hall. On Tuesday in the Dalton High School theater at 6:30 p.m., the board has a “listening session” with community members on school safety and security. The meetings end Wednesday with an executive session for personnel and an expected announcement of the new superintendent as the two agenda items. All meetings are open to the public.

Amonett has been employed by Dalton Public Schools since he was hired in 1977 as a seventh- and eighth-grade mathematics teacher at the old Dalton Junior High School. He later became principal there. He moved to the central office in 1998 as assistant superintendent of operations. He retired in 2011 as deputy superintendent to Hawkins.

Scott has worked throughout the state, beginning at Houston County Schools in middle Georgia in 1986. He was later principal at Warner Robins High. He went to Dublin in 2007 as principal at Dublin High and helped supervise the building of a new high school there. He moved to the metro Atlanta area and was assistant principal at Lassiter High School in Cobb County before being named principal at Douglas County High School in 2011. He stayed there for four-and-a-half years before moving to his current position.