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Wlaf1450Campbell County Schools continues its search for next Director of Schools
CAMPBELL COUNTY, TN (SPECIAL TO WLAF)- This is a letter to the Publisher from Dr. Robert Angel, Ph. D. Angel is a former Campbell County Schools Administrator and has been in education for more than 25 years.
In a previous letter to WLAF, I wrote about the importance of selecting the next Director of Schools in Campbell County. The most important factor in that decision is not personality, familiarity, or politics. It is outcomes. The academic performance of students, the district’s strategic direction, and the responsible management of public funds must guide the decision.
Simply put, the numbers matter.
Campbell County Schools face meaningful academic challenges and significant budget constraints that require consistent leadership and strategic focus. These realities reflect the broader pressures facing many rural districts, where limited resources and community economic conditions can create additional barriers to improvement.
State accountability reviews have also indicated that the district must continue to strengthen academic outcomes and long-term planning to move forward.
These are not small issues. They are structural challenges that affect all students across the county and require disciplined leadership and strategic decision-making.
For that reason, the process used to select the next director is just as important as the person selected.
When a process begins under conditions that appear inconsistent or improvised, it raises a reasonable question: Do those responsible for making the decision fully understand what voters have entrusted to them?
The Campbell County Board of Education previously voted to hire the Tennessee School Boards Association (TSBA) to assist with the director search. TSBA is commonly used across Tennessee to manage superintendent searches because it provides an independent review of applicants and helps boards establish objective criteria for evaluating candidates. The cost of that service to Campbell County taxpayers was approximately $3,000 to $15,000. Depending on what service the board selected.
Throughout the early stages of the search, public reporting and statements made during board discussions indicated that TSBA would review applicants and recommend three finalists for the board to interview. That expectation was repeated multiple times during the process.
However, when TSBA returned its recommendations, only two candidates were presented to the board rather than the three that had been widely discussed.
There may be reasonable explanations for that outcome. Search processes can sometimes yield a smaller pool of finalists depending on applicant qualifications or other factors. But when expectations communicated publicly do not match the final result, it naturally raises questions within the community.
The situation became more complicated during later board discussions regarding eligibility rules.
Earlier in the process, the board had adopted a guideline stating that the interim director would not apply for the permanent position during the search. Later, during a board meeting, that guideline was modified to allow the interim director to interview. I want to be very clear, the issue here is not about the qualifications of any candidate or the candidates themselves at any level.
Each individual selected is a veteran educator with years of service and leadership experience. By all accounts, the candidates involved have strong professional records and have dedicated their careers to education. I am confident all three are up to the challenge of the position.
The concern lies elsewhere.
It lies with governance.
When public funds are spent to hire an outside organization to manage a search process, the expectation is that the procedures established at the beginning of that process will remain consistent. Altering eligibility rules during the selection phase creates the appearance (fair or not) that the process itself may be shifting as events unfold at the time.
In public government and service perception matters.
This concern is especially important given the current environment surrounding public education. Across the country, and increasingly at the local level, school systems operate under constant scrutiny. Public education is frequently criticized from multiple directions. Some of those criticisms are legitimate and deserve serious discussion. Others are exaggerated or based on incomplete information.
Regardless of where one stands in those debates, school systems cannot afford to create additional questions for themselves by failing to follow clear and consistent procedures.
When a leadership search immediately raises questions about the process, before the first interview question is even asked of a candidate, it places the entire decision under a cloud of unnecessary doubt. Then that same doubt will naturally get transferred to the chosen candidate, no matter which candidate is chosen. That’s not the candidate’s fault; that’s just human nature. When the process looks tainted it causes natural human emotions of fairness and unfairness to come up. That’s not questioning someone’s integrity; that is the default response that gets created.
That is and should be avoidable.
Campbell County, like many rural districts across Tennessee, operates under tight financial constraints. School systems regularly face difficult decisions about staffing, programming, and resources. In that environment, spending taxpayer funds on a professional search process carries an expectation that the process will remain structured, transparent, and disciplined.
When those expectations appear unclear, public confidence becomes harder to maintain.
This discussion should not be viewed as criticism of any individual candidate or board member. Instead, it should serve as a reminder of the broader responsibility that accompanies public office.
School board members are elected to serve as stewards of the public’s education system. That responsibility includes not only selecting capable leaders but also ensuring that the procedures used to make those decisions reflect professionalism, fairness, and transparency.
Campbell County deserves a director who understands the academic and operational challenges facing rural school systems, as all three selected candidates, I am sure, understand. But the community also deserves confidence that the process used to select that leader reflects the highest standards of public governance and transparency.
Because leadership decisions do not begin with a title.
They begin with trust.
In smaller communities, this is especially important. Every governance decision carries long-term implications for public trust. When processes appear to shift during important decisions, it can deepen divisions, create unnecessary uncertainty, and doubt.
That outcome helps no one.
Because ultimately, the goal of any school district leadership search should be simple: to ensure that the focus remains where it belongs.
On the students.
Dr. Robert Angel
(WLAF NEWS PUBLISHED-03/12/2026-6AM)