TIFTON — The Tift County Board of Education has narrowed its search for a superintendent and will announce its choice between the two finalists at its next board meeting March 13.

BOE Chairman Rita Griffin said that the board narrowed the search to three applicants after interviewing five of them. One of three finalists withdrew their application at the last minute, Griffin said, and that person was not local.

Griffin said the personnel committee learned during the search process that Tift County’s salary for the superintendent’s position has traditionally been lower than the salary paid for school superintendents in counties comparable in size to Tift County.

“That (salary) is one thing that we are negotiating,” Griffin said. “The state gives so much and the county supplements the salary locally and the state considers the person’s years of experience and the education they have achieved.”

Interim Tift County School Superintendent Patrick Atwater and Foley (Ala.) Elementary School Assistant Principal S. Joanne Horton were chosen as finalists by the BOE during an executive session meeting held Tuesday night, according to BOE Attorney John Reinhardt.

In his application letter to the BOE, Atwater said that he is currently fulfilling both the interim superintendent’s responsibilities and those of his former job as assistant superintendent of operations.

“Throughout my career, I have had the opportunity to work in several different schools and capacities, including middle school teacher, assistant principal at the elementary and middle school level, principal, primary curriculum director, director of maintenance and operations of all schools in the system and presently assistant superintendent/interim superintendent,” Atwater wrote.

Atwater has served four months as interim superintendent and lists his salary in that position as more than $100,000. He graduated from Tift County High School in 1986; from ABAC in 1988 with a degree in business administration; the University of Georgia in 1991 with a bachelor of science degree in education; from Valdosta State University in 1994 with a master of education degree; and in 1996 from Valdosta State University with a educational leadership degree.

In her application letter to the BOE, Horton wrote that she previously served as building administrator of 300 sixth graders in a school system of approximately 4,000 students in Pell City, Ala. She then accepted a superintendent’s position in Fleming, Colo., “because I wanted to learn the various aspect of the inter-workings of a district office.”

Horton wrote that she began her career in 1971 as a counselor and teacher at Burnsville High School and one year at Iuka High Tishomingo County in Iuka, Miss. She then served as assistant principal, counselor and teacher at Sheffield City Schools in Sheffield, Ala.; assistant principal at Pell City Schools; superintendent in Fleming County, Ala.; and then as assistant principal in Foley, Ala. from 2001 until the present.

“I am confident that my interpersonal and organizational skills combined with my years in education will contribute significantly to the smooth operation of the school district,” Horton wrote.

Horton listed her current salary as $69,000.

Horton stated that she graduated in 1964 from Iuka High School in Iuka, Miss.; from the University of Mississippi in Oxford in 1968 with a bachelor of arts in education and social studies; from Florence State University in Florence, Ala., with a masters and educational specialist degree in social studies and secondary education; from the University of North Alabama in Florence with masters degrees in guidance and counseling and administration; her educational doctorate degree in education and organizational administration in 2005 from Nova Southeastern University of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.



To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.