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The Coffee County School Board voted to approve the contract of Interim Director Prater Powell on Nov. 11.

Powell’s contract was approved for a monthly compensation of $10,000 with a unanimous vote of 8-0.

The Board also voted on an amendment to the contract that allows Powell to maintain all the memberships afforded to the previous Director to professional organizations such as the Chamber of Commerce which also passed 8-0.

“It’s really designed to represent the school system in the community,” said Board Chairman Thomas Ballard during the meeting.

The Board also heard a presentation from Tennessee School Board Association Executive Director Dr. Tammy Grissom on the search services provided by the TSBA. Grissom gave the presentation over the phone.

The TSBA offers services to conduct the search for a new Director on behalf of the School Board. They offer three different plans that vary in price and depth of service.

Plan 1 costs $3,000 and involves developing a brochure that is distributed to various organizations to find potential candidates. The TSBA then offers all applicant materials to the Board.

Plan 2 costs $7,500 and includes the services of Plan 1 in addition to services such as an online survey, recruiting potential candidates, scheduling interviews, and assisting in developing a contract once a candidate is chosen, among others.

Plan 3 costs $15,000 and features everything in Plan 1 and Plan 2 and adds services such as holding in-person and community meetings to discuss the desired criteria for a Director, consulting with each Board member on criteria and process, reporting results of survey and community meetings to the Board, and recommending criteria to be adopted by the Board.

Board Member Freda K. Jones suggested holding off on discussing the Board’s options until a work session on Nov. 21.

“I think this is something we all need to discuss a little bit more,” said Jones. “I don’t feel comfortable making a decision like this tonight.”

“We haven’t even tried the first step of finding someone,” remarked Board Member Jennifer Peacock Hodge. “It seems like a big jump to hire someone when we haven’t talked about doing it ourselves.”

“We have a lot of really amazing people in Coffee County schools, and there might be a ton that qualify and want to put in an application, so we owe it to them, I feel like, to listen to them first, and we’ve already spent a lot of money, so if we don’t have to spend anymore, I’d rather not,” she added.

No motion was made to vote on the options, thus killing the issue for the meeting. Discussions will continue at the work session on Nov. 21.