MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

After three unsuccessful attempts, the Coffee County School Board approved the vacancy announcement brochure provided by the Tennessee School Boards Association as part of the search services they provide in finding a new Director of Schools.

The brochure lists the selection criteria, including minimum qualifications, the application process and some information about Coffee County and the school system.

Board Member Gary Cordell made a motion to adopt the brochure and suspend the policy which requires a professional educator’s license.

“I don’t want, by including that, that to take out someone that may not have a license, but may be thinking outside the box, is a good communicator and experienced and got really strong management and administrative skills,” said Cordell. “I don’t know what would be involved in a professional educator’s license, but I’m suggesting we take that out.”

The motion failed due to a lack of a second. Board member Chris Koon then made a motion to accept the brochure as written which was seconded by Board member Freda K. Jones.

Koon’s motion failed due to a 4-2 vote not achieving the five votes need to reach a quorum. Board Chairman Thomas Ballard and Cordell voted “nay” while Koon, Jones and Board member Holly Matthews and Scott Hansert voted “yes.” Board members Robert Gilley, Beth Yentsch and Jennifer Peacock Hodge were absent from the meeting.

“Nothing against Mr. Cordell; I respect him, but I think it’s equivalent to any job that you go to,” said Hansert. “It would be hard for me to have someone as a boss that’s never done what I’ve done before and don’t even have a degree, or a teacher’s license I should say. That’s what I’ve gotten from the teachers, and that’s who I’m supposed to be supporting, and from other constituents who have talked to me about this.”

A motion to reconsider the first motion, the third of the meeting, was made by Cordell.

“I love our teachers, and I so respect and appreciate what they’re doing,” he explained. “They’ve gone through tremendous stress and time to get to where they are and I respect and appreciate that, but I just didn’t want us to have that in there to maybe exclude someone who has tremendous management skills and could really think a little outside the box and move forward.”

“I hate for us to exclude a really good candidate just because the person should have, but doesn’t, a teaching certificate, and I know that’s in our policy,” he added.

That motion also failed due to a second.

A fourth, and final motion, was made by Hansert and seconded by Jones to reconsider adopting the brochure as written.

Jones, speaking as a former educator, cited low teacher morale and a lack of trust and communication between the Board and teachers and staff as reasons for being in favor of adopting the brochure with the qualification in place.

“I think we would be neglecting their concerns of having a leader that has been in the classroom and knows what’s going on in the everyday life of a teacher, and to me, that’s very important,” said Jones. “I know there’s probably some really good candidates out there, but you cannot provide the best of leadership if you haven’t been in that spot at sometime during your career.”

Chairman Ballard clarified that the point was not whether the candidates have teaching and classroom experience but whether they have a current professional educator’s license.

“If we just abolish the policy, that, to me, that’s just going to give us a bad image…” responded Jones. “If we just immediately abolish a policy and change the qualifications, then I think we’re going to really have a lot of additional non-support from our employees.”

Matthews commented that she agrees with Jones on the matter.

“I feel like in order for a Director to really be able to identify with the challenges the teachers are faced with every day in that classroom setting that they, in my opinion, would need to have taught in the classroom for not just a short amount of time but a decent amount of time,” she remarked.

Koon also remarked that he agreed with Jones and Matthews and said that it would be in the Board’s best interest to keep the qualification to create a bond between the Director and teachers.

“Like Mrs. Matthews said, teachers are not going to feel like they can come to the Director if they have an issue in the classroom if the Director’s never been in a classroom,” said Koon.

The Board voted 6-0 to approve the motion and to adopt the brochure provided by the TSBA as written. The brochure can be found at https://tsba.myrevelus.com, the site where potential candidates can apply for the Director of Schools job.