MATTHEW BURNETTE, Staff Writer

Tennessee School Boards Association Executive Director Dr. Tammy Grissom presented to the Coffee County School Board community meeting results and fielded questions about the search process at the Feb. 12 Special Call Board meeting.

Board member Freda K. Jones questioned why the Board would only be presented with up to three candidates to interview, to which Grissom responded that the candidate pool is “slim.”

“Just like you have a hard time finding teachers, we don’t get as many applicants as we used to,” explained Grissom. “Right now, we have five searches going on at the same time, and there’s eleven superintendent vacancies across the state, and it’s not just our state.”

Grissom also explained that, while the TSBA recruits as much as they can to get people to come to Coffee County, the Board has to do their part in attracting people to want to apply.

“It works both ways,” she said. “You want good candidates, but you all have to have things in place where people want to come to Coffee County because there’s lots of vacancies going on across the state right now.”

Across the five meetings that were held on Jan. 27, 134 people attended in total, and 233 completed the online survey that was available to fill out, according to Grissom.

“This process gave everyone in the community, faculty, and staff [the opportunity] to tell us what they felt and what they’d like in a new Director of Schools, so I commend the Board for giving everyone the opportunity to participate,” she said.

At the meetings, three questions were asked:

• What are 3 good things happening in the Coffee County School System?
• What are 3 challenges that the new Director will have to face?
• What are some personal characteristics that the new Director needs to have?

The three most common responses to the first question were teacher support and pay, the Excellence program and after school programs and the STEM and Career Technical programs.

Three most noted challenges that a new director will have to face, according to the results of the meetings, are a lack of trust and communication between the Board and staff, staff morale and teacher retention and school safety and facility concerns.

Some of the personal characteristics desired were good listening skills, strong communications skills and strong problem-solving abilities.

All of the information collected between the meetings and the surveys was used to develop a vacancy announcement brochure that is posted at https://tsba.myrevelus.com which is also the site where potential candidates can apply for the open Director position until the deadline of March 14.

The brochure lists the minimum qualifications of holding a professional educator’s license, a master’s degree in education with a preference for a doctorate, three years of successful experience in school administration, and other qualifications as the Board deems desirable.

Interested applicants must submit online a formal letter of interest, a current resume, including accomplishments by position, a copy of the candidate’s state license and certifications, university transcripts and names, addresses, email addresses and phone numbers of five professional references.