Paulding School Board Evaluates Superintendent

Paulding County Board of Education members spent close to three hours in executive session Tuesday to discuss personnel recommendations and give Superintendent Cliff Cole his evaluation.

The closed session comprised the board's entire meeting and, upon returning to open meeting, no comments were made. But following the meeting, board member Nick Chester said that Cole has done an excellent job moving the system forward in the direction in which the community has asked.

"We continue to meet our goals in terms of student achievement," Chester said. "We continue to be innovative in our approaches to educating our children and across the board, because we are in the same financial crunch many other school districts are—he continues to lead by example by doing more with less."

Board member Theresa Lyons said Cole has worked hard to streamline things in the school system's central office.

"He is fantastic, absolutely fantastic," Lyons said. "If I had to hire him again, I would say absolutely."

The board voted in July to extend Cole's contract for three years.

In other business, the board hired assistant principals for Abney and Panter elementary schools. Susan Woodham was moved from a teacher position at Russom Elementary to become the assistant principal at Abney, and Julie Penegar was moved from Panter's Title I instructional lead teacher to become its assistant principal.