Warren County Middle School principal Betty Wood will be taking her talents to the central office next school year as she’s been named professional development and teacher evaluation coordinator.
Wood is replacing Bonnie Collier, who is retiring this year, but she will have a different job description. Due to Race to the Top funding, the state is changing the way it evaluates teachers and Wood will have a crucial role in the local process.
“She’s a great fit for the job, especially the way it’s been restructured to include teacher evaluations,” said Bobby Cox, assistant director of schools in charge of instruction. “She’s worked at an elementary school, the high school, and of course the middle school so she’s done a little of everything. She brings the total package. Her knowledge of evaluating teachers and relating that back to instruction will work well with the new evaluation model.”
Wood was named WCMS principal at the start of the 2003-04 school year after serving as an assistant principal there for years. She has also worked at Irving College School, Warren County Junior High, and WCHS where she was girls basketball coach.
She’s been with the school system for 31 years. While headquartered at the central office, Wood will travel around to every school in the system as part of the teacher evaluation process.
With the departure of Wood from the WCMS helm, the school system has four principals to replace before the next school year begins. Wood’s job was posted yesterday morning.
“I think I posted it at 6:30 a.m. and I had my first application faxed in at 6:40 a.m.,” said Roy Pierce, human resources director. “Another applicant came in around 8 a.m. so there were two people interested within about an hour and a half of posting.”
In the search to replace James Bennett as executive principal of WCHS, eight candidates have been granted interviews. Three interviews will be held May 10, and five will be held May 12.
All local candidates were granted an interview. They are Franklin Fisher, Monti Hillis, Jeffery Martin and Sandy Dawes. Also in line for an interview are Amanda Lance of Knoxville who is formerly of McMinnville, Tony Cassel of Leesburg, Ind., Arthur Politz of Jasonville, Ind., and Paul Rockhold of Clarksville.
Pierce says he expects two or three of those candidates to be granted a second interview the following week and the new executive principal to be selected shortly thereafter.
As for the principal positions currently held by Donald Prater at Hickory Creek Elementary and Doug Reed at Eastside School, those jobs are now closed, according to Pierce. There were at least a dozen applicants for each of those positions with several people applying for both jobs.
The applicants for those jobs include Lisa Mason, whose father, Pedro Paz, is a former school superintendent, and Gerald Tidwell, a former WCHS football coach.
In addition to the principal jobs, Pierce says there are already 14 teacher positions open next year from teachers who have indicated they are retiring or not returning.