News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Van Buren County Director of Schools Jared Copeland announced his resignation during a special called Board of Education meeting Wednesday.
The Board of Education accepted Copeland’s resignation letter and Copeland will serve as director until February 7. Copeland said he is resigning to take a position with the Tennessee Department of Education.
“I’m a firm believer that to everything there is a season and I carry that belief with me through this decision,” Copeland said. “I appreciate the opportunity you have given me to lead this amazing school system, it has been an honor. I love our students and our staff and I know that these are some of the finest people in the world we truly have something special here.”
The board decided to hold off on naming an interim director. Board Member Barry Austin said he wanted to do preliminary work before naming an interim director.
“How do we know who wants to be interim director,” Austin said. “I mean no, that’s the thing we vote and say we want that person and then they can say no and then we are another month away.”
The board will further discuss the interim director position and name an interim director in a special called meeting on January 15 at 5:30pm. Board Member Davy Shockley said he would like to see some stipulations put in place for the interim director position.
“As interim I don’t think they should do the hiring and firing and moving people around in such a short time without board approval,” Shockley said. “Cause you move people around that’s done. You start firing people that’s done and you can’t redo that.”
The board also held brief discussions about the process of hiring a new director. Chairman Tim Hodges said waiting will give the board time to figure out how they want to go about the process.
“If we had our meeting we can discuss more of what we want to put into what we are looking at,” Chairman Tim Hodges said. “I mean we can throw it back and do the same thing that we have done on our last one but we might want to look and see if we want to add anything or take away.”
The board decided to further discuss hiring a new director at the January 22nd board meeting. Board Member Benjamin Grissom said at this point he was not ready to move forward with taking applications.
“I just thought this meeting was to accept a resignation letter and an interim director,” Grissom said. “I mean, we could do that too I just, in my mind I just thought we would take care of that part of it. I mean there is no rush.”
Board Member Barry Austin said the board already has the process and qualifications laid out. Austin said he wanted to go ahead and take applications but was willing to wait.
“Two weeks I’m fine,” Austin said. “But I just looked at it as the quicker we put out the application the quicker we can hire somebody.”
