Franklin Co. Set to Announce School Superintendent Finalists

By MJ Kneiser, WLHR Radio, Lavonia

The Franklin County School Board is set to announce its three finalists for the position of School Superintendent.

Tonight, the Franklin County Board of Education will hold a special called meeting at the School Administration offices in Carnesville to make the announcement.

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

On Tuesday, Franklin County School Board members spent the day interviewing six candidates for the job at the Holiday Inn Express in Lavonia.

Trudy Sowar is the Director of Superintendent Searches for the Georgia School Board Association.

Sowar has been working with the Franklin County Board of Education to help it find the right candidate.

She said the six candidates interviewed Tuesday came from both Georgia and from out of state.

In December, Dr. O’Dell said she had also been working with the Franklin County Board of Education to help it find the right person for her job.

She said the School Board wants her successor to continue to grow the system over the long term.

“They (the school board) knows that the most important thing is students and student learning,” O’Dell noted. “They know how we’ve organized things for students to learn and they’re going to be asking questions even after there’s a new hire. They’re going to be asking questions then to be sure it continues. I’m very confident in them and in what the board is going to able to do.”

Franklin County Board of Education Chair Joe Greene has said the board is very concerned that whoever it hires will continue to move forward on the same path Dr. O’Dell set and they want someone who will stay in the job longer than the traditional two to three years to see the school system through to the next level.

Today’s called Franklin County Board of Education meeting takes place at 6 p.m. at the administration offices in Carnesville.