Thirty-seven people are in the running for a short-term appointment to the St. Paul school board following Jean O’Connell’s resignation last month.

A flood of applications came in before the Friday afternoon deadline.

Each of the six active board members will select two applicants to advance to the interview stage Aug. 2. The board will appoint their favorite later that night.

The appointee will take office Sept. 13, unless residents contest the selection.

Voters will pick O’Connell’s permanent replacement in a special election Nov. 8. That person will take office at the following meeting and serve until January 2018.

The school district is keeping secret the names of the applicants for the two-month job, citing a statute that says potential appointees to a vacancy should be identified only after they are named finalists to be interviewed by the board.

In 2011, the district did name all 41 preliminary applicants.

Spokeswoman Toya Stewart Downey said the finalists who will be interviewed will be named Wednesday.

The city DFL Party will endorse a candidate Aug. 13.

O’Connell resigned after the board voted to remove Valeria Silva as superintendent, saying the environment at board meetings had become “so disrespectful, destructive and cynical that I can no longer be a part of it.”