Superintendent pulls recommendation for personnel transfers

The Grady County Board of Education met behind closed doors for more than half an hour before reopening the meeting to the public and voting to approve some, but not all, of the school superintendent’s personnel recommendations.

Following the closed session, Superintendent Dr. Kermit Gilliard pulled the list of personnel being recommended for transfers.

“We are holding the transfers until next month,” Dr. Gillard said.

The list of transfers pulled from consideration included:

Shequita Corker – teacher at Southside Elementary School to teacher at Eastside Elementary School; Lynlee Barrett – math teacher at Shiver Elementary School to math teacher at Cairo High School; Caitlin Register – teacher at Whigham Elementary School to teacher at Northside Elementary School; Barbara Godwin – from math teacher at Cairo High School to graduation coach at C.H.S.; Cassie Hudson – from special education teacher at Whigham to counselor at Whigham; Jennifer Donalson – from math teacher at Whigham to STEM teacher at Washington Middle School; and Austin LeGette from English teacher at C.H.S. to English teacher at Shiver.

The superintendent did not explain his reasoning for pulling the transfers, but noted that the system is cautiously moving forward with budget planning in light of requests from state officials to be prepared to cut 14 percent from the system’s operating budget.

The superintendent did recommend the hiring of additional personnel, acceptance of recent resignations and the approval of a termination.

Personnel hired Tuesday night included: Jessica Lanier – English Language Arts teacher at Whigham Elementary School; Heather Cato – teacher at Northside Elementary School; Kelsey West – ELA teacher at Whigham; Samantha Dean – teacher at Northside; Kimberley Ramcharran – school psychologist; Hannah Wilde – teacher at Southside Elementary School; Ayzia Bogan – teacher at Southside; Unetkia Sales – counselor at Northside; Johnny Brown – assistant band director; Cody Ray – assistant band director; Brittany Crocker – teacher at Southside; Selea DeValle – teacher at Eastside Elementary School; Booker Gainor – teacher at Washington Middle School; and Johnta Cooper – boys head basketball coach.

The board approved the following resignations: Scarlet Cummings – parapro at Southside Elementary School; Layton Stephenson – STEM teacher at Washington Middle School; Hannah Owens – parapro at Northside Elementary School; Rosalie Wilson- teacher at Southside; Quanz Peters – parapro at Southside; and Davina Thomas – school resource officer at Eastside Elementary School.

The board approved the retirement of Washington Middle School science teacher Heidi Graziano and approved the termination of Karem Holmes – food service assistant at Eastside Elementary School.

In other business Tuesday night, the board approved the reccommendation of finance officer Dan Broome to pay the accounts payable totaling $556,176.20.