Trentham Said Cookeville High Adjusting To Change In Leadership

On her first day as Cookeville High School’s Interim Principal, Karen Trentham said she received overwhelming support from faculty and students.

Trentham takes over following the resignation of Max Petett this week for health and personal reasons. She said change is never easy, but happening so early in the school year, there’s still learning and adjusting that needs to happen.

“Well, I think every school year is different, and the makeup of the students are different and their needs,” Trentham said. “And so at the beginning, we’re all just kind of learning each other, I think. So we’re still in that process of learning how things work around here for our freshmen and then getting our seniors all ready. It actually is not too bad of a time to do this, but, yes, it’s a little challenging with having a little change.”

Trentham has served as assistant principal at Cookeville for nine years. She said the system will post a job opening for that role. Trentham said the school would be naming a Dean of Students, the other role she served.

As for the future, she said she would love to be considered for the permanent position.

“It’s been my home away from home since 2007 and we’ve gone through ups and downs as a faculty and staff and we’ve all just pulled together as a family,” Trentham said. “And I just love it here and I would love to end my career here finally.”

A Johnson City native, Trentham served as principal at Parrottsville Elementary School in Cocke County for five year. She has been at Cookeville for 15 years. She admits nothing prepares you to lead a school as big as Cookeville.

“I would agree with that for sure,” Trentham said. “We have a lot of pieces that are all working together, and so that can be challenging to maintain. But I can’t say enough about our faculty and staff and just how well everyone works together and does their part to just make things work.”