Franklin BOE Meets to Select New School Superintendent

Franklin County’s Board of Education takes another step forward in their search for a new school superintendent.

Current Superintendent Dr. Ruth O’Dell is retiring at the end of this school year.

On Sunday, the Board met for a called session at the law offices of Doug Kidd in downtown Lavonia.

Board Chair Joe Greene said the meeting was an executive session.

“We are meeting today today to officially select our finalist for the position of School Superintendent,” Greene said Sunday.

On Thursday, March 24th, Board member Robin Cato announced the three finalists for the job.

They include Dr. Ardith Bates, Mr. Shannon Christian, and Mr. Wayne Randall.

After that, the School Board is required by law to wait 14 days before announcing their final candidate for the job.

That date, officially, is this Thursday, April 7th. However, this the Franklin County School System’s spring break week.

Still, Greene said this week gives the Board time to finalize the contract with their candidate.

“We will have the contract negotiations this week and we hope to announce our finalist next week, probably Tuesday, in a called board meeting,” he said.

All three finalists are from Georgia school systems.

Dr. Ardith Bates is from Dalton, GA and currently works in the Murray County School System in Chatsworth, GA as the Director of Personnel.

Shannon Christian is currently the Assistant Superintendent of Operations for the Butts County School System in Jackson, GA.

And Wayne Randall is an Assistant School Superintendent for the Franklin County School system.

The three finalists were chosen from an initial pool of 22 applications which were narrowed to six candidates.

Those six were interviewed on March 22nd.

The Board will not officially hire their finalist until they vote on it at that called meeting next week.