Board to review 6 resumes for schools director

Published 2:19 pm Wednesday, April 8, 2015

The Elizabethton Board of Education is reviewing the resumes of the six applicants who have applied to be the next superintendent of the Elizabethton City Schools.

The board has been searching for its next director since former Superintendent Ed Alexander retired in January. The board advertised for the open position and collected resumes until March 31.

In that time, the board received seven resumes, two fewer than was reported at Monday night’s board meeting. One applicant, Jeff Morehouse, asked for his resume to be withdrawn from consideration. This leaves six applicants for the board to review for the open position:

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τ Interim superintendent Corey Gardenhour. Gardenhour has worked with the ECS since 2006, starting as principal of West Side Elementary. He has also worked as director of alternative service, special education, special education transportation, personnel, pre-k-12 curriculum and instruction, response to intervention, guidance services, technology, testing k-12, early learning services, health and nursing services and data services and accountability.

Gardenhour received his bachelor’s degree in biology and chemistry and master’s degree in education from Milligan College. He received an education specialist degree from Lincoln Memorial University in education administration and supervision and a doctorate in education from East Tennessee State University in education leadership and policy analysis.

τ Thomas H. Graves of Abingdon, Va. For the past four months, Graves has worked as a supervisor at Secor Inc. in Lebanon, Va. Graves started working as an educator in 1983 as a biology teacher and track and field coach in Tuscaloosa, Ala. He has since worked as an academic advisor, assistant principal, counselor, principal, assistant superintendent, director of facilities and logistics and educational consultant at various school systems in Alabama, Florida, Wyoming, Montana, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina. He currently holds a teaching license in Virginia. He also worked as a criminal investigator in Auburn, Ala. from 1988-1991.

Graves earned his bachelor’s degree in secondary education and master’s degrees in secondary education, counseling psychology and educational administration and a doctorate in educational foundations, leadership and technology from Auburn University.

τ Jeanne Catherine Halford of Elizabethton. Most recently, Halford worked as an instructor in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school district in Charlotte, N.C. from 2013-2015. From 2012-2013 she worked as an autism special education teacher at Porter Ridge Middle School in the Union County School District in Indian Trail, N.C. and from 2009-2010, Halford was an inclusion teacher in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district.

Halford received a bachelor’s of science degree in education from Nova Southeastern University in Florida and a master’s of education in leadership from the University of Florida. She has a doctorate in adult education administration from Old Dominion University. She also has a master of art’s degree in instructional design from the University of North Carolina – Charlotte. She holds a professional educator’s license from North Carolina.

τ Myles Joseph Hebrard of Powell. Hebrard is principal of Claxton Elementary School in Anderson County, where he has served since 2008. Prior to that, he was a pre-engineering teacher for seventh and eighth grade and an eighth grade Algebra and math teacher at Clinton Middle School in Anderson County from 2003-2008.

Hebrard has a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Charleston. He received a master’s degree in special education, an education specialist degree in special education and administrative licensure in educational leadership and supervision from the University of Tennessee.

τ Blair Ferrell Henley of Bristol. Henley has served as the vice president of information services/chief technology officer at Tusculum College since June 2011 and as director of technology for the Niswonger Foundation’s Northeast College and Career Ready Consortium since 2010. Henley has also worked as the career and technical education supervisor for Bristol Tennessee City School from 2003-2011; adjunct faculty at ETSU from 2008-2011; systems engineer with Intellithought Inc. in Kingsport from 2001-2003 and computer science teacher at Elizabethton High School from 1997-2001.

Henley has a bachelor’s degree from ETSU, a master’s degree in educational administration and supervision from Lincoln Memorial University and a doctorate in educational leadership and policy analysis from ETSU.

τ  Janell S. Wells of Elizabethton. Wells works as a substitute teacher with the Bristol City Schools and Carter County Schools. Prior to that, she worked as a sixth- through 12th-grade physical education and health teacher in the Rockford Public Schools in Rockford, Ill., from 2006 to 2010 and an interim sixth- through 12th-grade physical education and health teacher at John Sevier Middle School in Kingsport for three months in 2013.

Wells has a bachelor’s degree in physical education from Florida State University and a master’s degree in teacher leadership from the University of Illinois.