Monteagle Elementary School Principal Janet LayneDIRECTOR SEARCH
The Grundy County Board of Education is seeking a director of schools. Candidates must conform to Grundy’s ethics code for professional behavior and must hold a master’s degree in education in “administration and supervision” or “curriculum and instruction,” or a baccalaureate degree with a business major with at least five years’ experience in budgeting, personnel and supervision.Applications must be filed with the school system office by 3 p.m. CDT Friday and can be sent to Grundy County Department of Education, Attn: Phyllis Gulley, P.O. Box 97, Altamont, TN 37301. For more information, call the school system’s central office at 931-692-3467.
The search is on in Grundy County for a replacement for retiring Director of Schools Jody Hargis, who will leave the office sometime in the next two years.
Applications can be submitted through Friday, and school board officials say they hope to have a new person in place soon to work with Hargis through the 2012-13 budget season.
Hargis could not be reached Monday for comment.
Board member Anita Meeks said she was glad Hargis agreed to stay on to help and has said he is willing to step down in December 2012 or stay until the board finds a suitable replacement in 2013.
An official in the school system’s central office said two applications — from Monteagle Elementary School Principal Janet Layne and Grundy County High School Principal James Rick Rust — were in hand as of noon Monday.
Officials would like to have someone in place this year “if we can find the right person,” Meeks said, hedging that she didn’t want to move too fast.
“I will not vote for somebody who’s not qualified or who will play politics,” she said.
Grundy’s school director seat has shifted in recent years from Hargis to former classroom teacher Clay Newsome for about six months in 2010, then back to Hargis as interim director after Newsome was removed from the post, newspaper archives show.
In January, state auditors hit Grundy schools hard with a number of findings and accounting problems for the fiscal year ending June 2011.
Hargis started work on some of the eight findings in the audit, and others will be addressed during the transition to the new director, officials said.
School board member Willene Campbell said whoever assumes the post will benefit from Hargis’ experience. But they’ll also inherit a challenge in budget problems, she said.
“I think anybody [hired as director] now is facing a challenge, whoever they are, because we don’t have the tax base that other counties have. Coffee County is facing [financial challenges] and they have Bonnaroo,” she said, referring to the annual four-day music festival.
Campbell said her main concern is whether applicants’ interests are focused on what’s best for students.
Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6569.