Franklin Co. BOE Narrowing Down Finalists for School Superintendent

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

Franklin County’s Board of Education takes another step forward in its 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.

Franklin County Board of Education 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, the Franklin County Board of Education announced the three finalists for the job.

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

From that date, the Franklin County School Board was required by law to wait 14 days before announcing its 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 its 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, Geogia and currently works in the Murray County School System in Chatsworth, Georgia as the Director of Personnel.

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

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 Franklin County Board of Education will not officially hire its finalist until they vote on it at that called meeting next week.