LEBANON - The Lebanon School Board has named Rob Hess, a former principal at two Lebanon schools, and George Woodruff, superintendent of the South Coast Education Service District, as finalists for the district's superintendent position.

Board members are now scheduling visits to the candidates' current districts but have not set a date for final interviews and community meetings. The board is expected to announce a selection April 20.

Hess taught a variety of language arts classes in grades seven through 12 from 1987 to 1997, in schools ranging from a large junior high in East Los Angeles to East Linn Christian Academy in Lebanon. He became assistant principal at Lebanon High School in 1997.

Hess was principal at Lebanon Middle School from 1999 until its closure in 2002, then was principal of Pioneer School until 2005.

He became the director of student achievement for the Springfield School District in 2005 and was named assistant superintendent there this past fall.

Hess has written three books on leadership and school improvement. He has taught classes on teacher leadership, professional development and data analysis at the University of Oregon, Oregon State University and Lewis & Clark College.

He was honored last year with the 2008 Achievement of Excellence award from the Oregon Association of Central Office Administrators for organizing small learning communities for teachers to read about and discuss best practices in education. He founded an online group for the same work, breakthroughschools.org.

Hess has a doctorate in educational leadership from the University of Oregon.

Woodruff has been superintendent of the South Coast ESD since 2007. The ESD is composed of 10 school districts from Reedsport to Brookings.

Before that, he served as superintendent of the Port Angeles School District in Washington for six years and as assistant superintendent for the Tumwater School District in Washington for 13 years. He worked as director of elementary education in Auburn, Wash., from 1974 to 1982.

The ESD board initially hired Woodruff as an interim superintendent but a year later unanimously gave him a "sterling evaluation" of his professional performance and offered him a three-year contract, according to reports in the Coos Bay World.

He has a doctorate in educational leadership from Seattle University.

He received an Outstanding Community Service award in Port Angeles in 2002 and an Outstanding Educational Leadership award in 2001 from the Native American Tribes of the Olympic Peninsula.