Searching for a Superintendent… Elizabethton Board of Education meets to discuss groundwork
Published 5:28 pm Thursday, May 28, 2020
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BY IVAN SANDERS
STAR STAFF
The Elizabethton City School Board of Education continued to plow forward in their search for a new School Superintendent to replace Dr. Corey Gardenhour who will be resigning effective June 30, 2020.
Intended to set the groundwork for how the candidates will be selected along with how the interview process will take place, the meeting was held up as the streaming of the meeting wasn’t going out live to viewers and the question of if the meeting would be in violation of the Sunshine Law.
Upon review by Dr. Gardenhour, Executive Order #16 issued by Governor Bill Lee which states the following allowed the meeting to proceed:
Executive Order No. 16 covered all governing bodies in Tennessee, including county commissions, city councils, boards of aldermen, school boards, state boards, and more.
The meeting must be open and accessible to the public by electronic means. Each governing body must make reasonable efforts to ensure that the public access to the meeting via electronic means is live access, but if the governing body cannot provide such live public access despite reasonable efforts, the governing body must make a clear audio or video recording of the meeting available to the public as soon as practicable following the meeting, and in no event more than two business days after the meeting.
Board chairwoman Rita Booher advised the board that at the cutoff time for applications there had been 12 applications received- three internal and nine external.
Booher went on to advise that the public can view the applications at the City School Board office which will be open starting June 1st with hours from 8 am to 3 pm.
It was decided that the applications would be divided between the 12 members – five board members and seven selection committee members to call on the references to expedite the process.
The questions being asked will be developed and placed in document format as to what can be legally asked and the questions which must be avoided by law as approved by the board’s council, Debra Owens.
Members of the search committee include Shawn Witten, Justin White, Julie Smith, Regina Cates, Denise Davis, Daniel Estes, and Tommy Tipton.
The committee will be charged with taking the applicants and assigning a ranking of 1-5 on the board’s policy criteria for selecting a Superintendent. The committee will also review the candidate’s background and body of work according to Booher.
All internal candidates are guaranteed an interview so the committee will be making a consensus of the top external candidates who they would recommend for an interview.
Booher went on to say that by Friday, June 5th, the committee would have a list prepared for the board to review in a called meeting on Monday, June 8th at 6 pm.
Also discussed was the way the interviews would be conducted as Booher stated that she wanted to make sure each candidate had a level playing field and with some areas still enforcing travel restrictions that the interviews might be better conducted by Zoom.
According to Dr. Gardenhour, if someone travels further than 100 miles from their home they are required to report that travel and that could hinder an applicant should one be selected from a bordering state or beyond.
Board member Eddie Pless then asked if it would be practical to slow the process down where time that all applicants could appear in person as it is easier to get a feel from an applicant’s body language and answers when in person.
He further stated that this was an important decision for the City School System and wanted to make sure that things would be done properly to find the right person to fill the job and take the school system forward over the upcoming years.
Pless suggested even making an appointment of an interim Superintendent until the board could have in-person interviews.
Board member Danny O’Quinn stated that he would be more in favor of an in-person interview as well and suggested the board wait to see who the finalist may be before making the decision to use Zoom to do interviews.
If the board elected to go with an interim title, per board policy that person could not be considered for the Superintendent’s position unless the board agreed to make a policy change that could extend the time in making a decision.
No official decision was made but Booher continued to use Zoom interviews as a point of reference as the meeting proceeded.
Dr. Groover May referred back to the Executive Order given by Lee that stated that there had to be clear video and audio of the meetings.
The disruption early on with the live stream did bring to the front the possibility of other technical errors that could occur impacting the process moving forward.
The final piece of business came when Booher asked the board members to come up with three or four questions to ask of the candidates and those questions would be finalized to make sure repetitive questions would be eliminated.
Booher stated that the reason for pushing to get a Superintendent in place was due to the new school year will begin on July 1st, 2020 and a new Superintendent would be making decisions going forward how schools would be impacted with the question of COVID-19 still up in the air versus stepping in after someone else had made prior decisions and having to play catch up.
