The Lawrence School Board is right to amend its plan for choosing a replacement board member to include in-person interviews.

Nineteen candidates have applied to replace Kristie Adair, who resigned her seat in February because of conflicts with her work schedule. The deadline to apply for the seat was Monday.

The board’s original plan was to judge the candidates solely on their applications and vote on an appointment at the board’s March 13 meeting. But school board president Marcel Harmon said Monday that the board is rethinking that after getting feedback from the public on the selection process.

“We’ve just been hearing from the community that they would like to see the candidates publicly interviewed and/or have a chance to publicly state their case for being a school board member,” Harmon said in an email to the Journal-World.

That would be a departure from the process used in the past. In 2014, the board appointed two replacements based on their applications alone.

Originally, the board planned to use that process to fill Adair’s seat. Under the process, board members would review all applications independently, select three applicants as their top choices, then discuss the merits of those applicants at a public meeting on March 13, the same meeting in which they would also appoint the new board member.

Board members had the option of contacting applicants, but such contact was left up to individual board members.

Harmon said the new process would require more time. The board has now requested that the 19 people who have applied attend its regular meeting on March 13. Each candidate has been asked to prepare a brief presentation outlining his or her qualifications and reasons for applying. Board members may ask them questions. The board will then select a candidate two weeks later, at a special meeting on March 27.

Harmon and the board are making the right call. Though much can be gleaned from an application, there is no substitute for meeting and interviewing candidates to gauge their readiness to serve.

Filling a seat on the school board is an important public decision, and both the applicants and board members are best served by a process that includes interviews.