Lenoir City Board of Education  On Monday unanimously selected Jeanne Barker as the district's next superintendent.

Barker accepted the position by phone, contingent on contract negotiations.

"I'm very honored to be supported with such an outstanding vote of confidence from the board. It humbles me, and I look forward to putting all my efforts into doing good things for the boys and girls and teachers of Lenoir City," Barker said Tuesday in a telephone interview.

Barker is Lebanon Special School District associate director in middle Tennessee. She will begin at the start of the new year, according to Charles Cagle, general counselor for Lenoir City Schools.

In her new role, Barker said she plans to initially review the district's long-term goals.

"The board has a five-year plan that I would like to become familiar with, talk to each of the board members about the goals for the district, review information with the leadership in the district - that would be principals and district leadership - and also have an opportunity to meet the teachers, to hear from them and see where we need to go from there, build on the good things that are currently in place and then see where we need to continue to improve," Barker said.

Barker's involvement with the Teacher Instructional Growth for Effectiveness and Results teacher evaluation model and previous experience specifically at the elementary school level gave her an advantage, board members said.

"She specifically said you've got to start in the lower grades and go up. ... and I don't know how she knew this, but when she said that I thought, 'Man, that's what some of the parents have been talking to me about.' My vote would go with Barker," board member Bobby Johnson Sr. said during discussion at Monday's meeting.

"You've got to teach them when they're young, and she'll catch the upper without any problems," Johnson said. "That's what I'm tickled about is she emphasized a lot of stuff with the elementary. ... This is what she's good at is in the elementary. I'm sure that's what she's going to work on."
Board chairwoman Rosemary Quillen said Barker's desire to continue the good work of retiring Superintendent Wayne Miller was key to her decision.

"The TIGER model that was a huge plus to me because she was involved in authoring that, along with Mr. Miller," Quillen said.  "That is the evaluation tool that we use in our school system, which I think is most advantageous to our teachers and will be very important in determining teacher accountability in our system, and coming from Wayne being in the development of it and Dr. Barker that was very important to me that that would be a constant tool for our teachers and the best tool."

"She's knowledgeable about Core Curriculum and new standards. She had a good review from the advisory teams, the schools that interviewed her," Quillen said, adding she believes Barker is "proactive in some of the problems that we brought before her.

"She is open to student and community input, and she very much wants to be a part of our community, and she understands a five-year plan," Quillen said. "I think she will be a good fit here. I'm very excited about the new opportunities we have."

For board member Mitch Ledbetter, it was a gut feeling.

"I just had a feeling she would be a better fit for us as far as community-wise, school-wise," Ledbetter said.

The board previously narrowed its search to two candidates, Barker and Donna Wright, assistant superintendent at Williamson County Schools. The two candidates went through a scheduled meet-and-greet session last week with the three schools, the board, central office staff, city officials and the public. Each school also formed teacher and parent committees to give impressions of each candidate before the board named a successor.

Board member Rick Chadwick said Barker's knowledge of a five-year plan for a district is "what changed my mind."

"She nailed it when she talked about capital projects, and as much as we've done in the past in our five-year plan, all these buildings we've built and so forth, that's the only way you can do it. She mentioned it. ... Everyone in this room knows about our five-year plan. It's huge," Chadwick said.

Quillen and Cagle will negotiate Barker's contract, which includes tenure, salary and benefits.
The board will vote on the contract at the next regular board meeting Dec. 13.