Oconee County School Board Chair Says Board Would Like To Have A New Superintendent In Place In September

***Interim Superintendent Harden To Reopen Mold Investigation***

Oconee County School Board Chair Michael Ransom said the Board would like to name a new school superintendent in September and have that person start serving as superintendent that month.

Ransom said he recognizes that his time line is “pretty aggressive,” and he said it is likely the new superintendent will not be in place until later in the fall semester, and perhaps not until January.

Ransom said he is “sure we’ll have some internal applications,” but he stated that at this point “We don’t have anybody in mind” for the superintendent position.

Ransom said he expects the Board to begin holding interviews with a select number of applicants by the end of the summer, leading to the announcement of a sole finalist.

When the sole finalist is announced, he said, the public will have 14 days to comment on the selection, as required by state law.

Ransom made his comments at the June 23 meeting of the Oconee County Republican Party, where he was joined by Debra Harden, named by the Board as Interim Superintendent to serve until a new superintendent is selected.

Harden, in response to a question, said she would re-open investigation of the possibility of mold at Oconee County Elementary School when she takes over on July 1 and “make a decision and a recommendation” on a possible course of action.

Many of the questions directed to Ransom and Harden had to do with transparency, with Ransom largely defending current school system and Board behavior, and Harden emphasizing that “these are your schools” and this is “your information.”

Ransom On Search Status

Ransom and Harden were the only speakers at the June meeting of the Republican Party, and Party Chair Kathy Hurley first invited Ransom to come to the front of the meeting room at the Piedmont Oconee Health Campus on Jennings Mill Road.

Ransom 6/23/2025

Approximately 25 people were in attendance, including School Board Members Amy Parrish, Ryan Hammock, Adam Hammond, and Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell and County Commissioner Amrey Harden, husband of Debra Harden.

All five members of the Board of Education as well as all five members of the Board of Commissioners were elected as Republicans.

Ransom told the audience that the application period for school superintendent closed on June 16 and that the Board has not yet seen the applicant list.

Georgia Leadership Associates (GLA), the firm facilitating the search, will review candidate credentials and provide the Board with a ranked list of qualified applicants, he said.

“Our time line is a little bit tricky,” Ransom said, because likely applicants attend conferences during the summer and many take vacations.

Ransom said the Board is seeking a candidate who will live in Oconee County and commit to a five- to seven-year tenure. The average tenure for a superintendent in Georgia, Ransom noted, is just more than two years.

“I think five is a good sweet spot because that gives you some consistency and continuity, but you don’t get into a rut where new ideas are hard to come by,” he said.

Jason Branch announced his decision to step down as superintendent (officially a retirement) on April 14 after a 13-year tenure at Oconee County Schools. He became chief operating officer/deputy executive director of the Georgia Teacher Retirement System on July 1.

More On Candididates

The Board will begin reviewing candidates after GLA presents its recommended pool, Ransom said.

“We don’t have anybody in mind,” Ransom said in response to a question about the possibility of internal candidates. “I don’t even want to see a name at the top of the list. I just want to see what their qualifications are, at least for the first round.”

To date, the only public input has come from an online opt-in survey Ransom described as “very high-level.”

Former State Rep. Chuck Williams called the survey “pretty weak” and asked Ransom what opportunity the public will have to be involved with the selection of a news superintendent.

“If it is right for us to have two or three candidates to meet the people, meet the public, and have a meet and greet session, maybe we can facilitate that,” Ransom said.

Ransom said there is a 14-day period “once you name the sole finalist before you can hire that person. That is a comment period for anybody who wants to make a comment about that superintendent. That’s by law in Georgia.”

“If you know a Board member, and there is something you want to see in a superintendent, feel free to call them,” Ransom said. “Our emails are out there. My phone number is on the Internet and is pretty easy to find.”

(The Board of Education web page does not list the email addresses or phone numbers of the Board Members. Jim Gaither explains in the comment below how it is possible from the link here to get to the email addresses of the Board Members on the simbli site. The phone numbers of Parrish and Ransom are there as well.)

“I know most of the Board members like to talk,” he said. “Call any of us and talk to us.”

Ransom encouraged people to tell Board Members “What you’d like to see” in a superintendent. Let the Board know “If there is something you really feel like you’ve got to add, there is one thing that really sticks out in your mind we need.”

Ransom said Harden “is the superintendent for the interim, not just the Interim Superintendent. Starting July 1 until we find a replacement.”

Harden On Her Role

Harden served as Oconee’s superintendent from 1992 to 1999. She was the last elected superintendent and the first appointed superintendent for Oconee County Schools.

Harden 6/23/2025

After stepping down as superintendent, Harden told the gathered audience members, she worked for 20 years for the Georgia Superintendent Association.

Harden said her focus will be on supporting school leadership and implementing the current Board-adopted strategic plan.

“My relationship with the Board of Education is good,” Harden said in responses to a question. “I’m their employee, but we’re a team. Just like in any organization, you have to work together to accomplish the goals. That’s what I’m going to do.”

When asked about the new Instructional Support Center, where her office will be, Harden said “It is a lovely, functional building. And there are no fireplaces. There are chimneys, but there are no fireplaces.”

The building contains nonfunctional chimneys and a cupola as ornamentation.  

“What is your vision of transparency and how does that relate to where we are today?” Party Chair Hurley asked Harden.

“I think transparency is making information available and being willing to sit down and talk about the information,” Harden said. “That doesn’t mean we’re going to agree. Good people see things differently. But these are your schools and your information.”

In response to another question, Harden said it is her understanding of current discussions about a third high school that “probably expansion at the current sites would be a more practical, cost effective way to handle the growth.”

More On Transparency

“I’ll bring up the elephant in the room,” one person said to Ransom, raising concerns about “the openness of the School Board...So I’m just really concerned about that.”

The questioner said he had “been to several of your meetings. And I’ve been to a lot of the Board of Commissioners meetings.”

“And I can tell you,” he continued, “it’s a world of difference between being in a Board of Commissioners meetings when it feels like you’re open and you’re welcome as opposed to a Board of Education meeting with everybody looks like they have eaten prunes or eaten pickles and they look like they really don’t want you to say anything.”

Ransom acknowledged he doesn’t often look at those who are speaking to the Board.

“A lot of time, I’m taking notes,” he said. “I’m trying to gather my thoughts so I can reach out to that person speaking and maybe talk to them directly and answer some of their questions.”

In response to a question about providing information to the public, Ransom said, “If there is an open records request, and there is no information to give out, that’s what the answer is. If we don’t have a record to present, our answer is that there’s no record to present. Just because the answer didn’t satisfy everybody, it’s still the answer.”

“We’re working on being more open,” Ransom said. “I try to be more open. I try to smile more.”

Ransom also encouraged citizens to contact school system department heads when they are seeking information.

“I think those positions are underutilized in that sense in that nobody reaches out to them directly,” he said.

“I get paid $138 per month,” he said. (The Board Member stipend is $1,800 per year.)

“There is a misconception there I think about our transparency,” he said. “I’m not on social media...You have to come find me if you want to get information, I guess.”

Public Meetings

Former Rep. Williams told Ransom that he found the limitation of speakers to three minutes during the public comment period of its regular meetings “insulting” and he objected to the rule that only citizens of the county are allowed to speak.

Hurley 6/23/2025

Ransom said the restriction allowing only citizens to speak has “been the Board policy for as long as I remember...Pretty much every school system in the state does the same thing."

“By limiting it to people who live in the county it is directed more to people that are involved in this community and also have something pertaining to the actual running of the school system,” he said, “not just a political point or something completely unrelated.”

“Our meetings are open to the public, but they are not quote unquote public meetings if that makes sense,” he continued.

“They are public meetings to that point that anybody can come and watch,” he said.

“But that is our business meeting that we keep open to the public. But it is not a town hall or conversational meeting in that regard. It is a business meeting for us that the public can attend.”

“What is the possibility of having a town hall?” someone asked. Board Member Hammond ran in November on the pledge of pushing for Town Hall meetings, but none have been held.

“I think it is pretty strong,” Ransom said.“It’s been a busy year so far with new Board Members getting training and also some legislation that came through that took a bunch of extra meetings.”

The retirement of Branch and the resultant superintendent search as well as the implementation of a School Resource Officer program also have consumed a lot of time, he said.

“After the new superintendent comes in, whatever that time might be, I think that’s definitely something we’ll revisit and potentially have in the future,” he said.

Mold Concerns at Oconee Elementary

In recent months, parents of students at Oconee County Elementary School have requested independent testing for mold at the school and offered to help fund it if cost is a barrier.

When asked about the issue at the GOP meeting, Harden said she considers mold an operational matter and plans to begin gathering information once she takes office.

“It may be a short-term step and a long-term step,” she said. “But I think I can commit to that.”

“We have a Chief of Operations, Ransom said,  referring to Ryan White, “and he handles all of operational stuff in the school system. The Board is hands off on day-to-day operations, day-to-day business, period. We don’t get involved in anything day-to-day.”

“If they tell us that it is handled,” he said, “I have to assume it is handled.”

“We’ll never knowingly send kids or teachers into a harmful situation,” he added.

Listening Session

Prior to introducing Ransom and Harden, Party Chair Hurley offered her perspective on the May 28 Listening Session organized by Community Works Oconee, a community service organization growing out of the Oconee County Democratic Party.

Community Works Oconee invited members of the public to indicate what they would like to see in a new school superintendent. The session was moderated by retired University of Georgia Professor Margaret Holt, who has extensive experience running public forums.

Hurley said she identified 12 people who had spoken at the session, based on the report of the session on Oconee County Observations. Twenty-three people attended the meeting. The post included a video recording of the full session.

“And what I determined is that of the 12 people he mentioned in his blog, 10 of them are hard Democrats according to their voter records,” Hurley said. “So it was not a bipartisan listening session.”

“My estimation was that some of this was touchy feely also,” she said. “Some issues that they see prevalent in the superintendent search others may not. And our guests are going to talk about that.”

The most common characteristics desired of a superintendent, asked for repeatedly during the 75-minute-long session on May 28, were transparency, accessibility, and responsiveness to comments from parents and other citizens.

The issue of mold at Oconee County Elementary School also came up frequently.

None of the five Board members attended the session, though organizer Ann Hollifield said all had been invited. Board Chair Michael Ransom never acknowledged the invitation, Hollifield said, while the others said they had other obligations.

Terry Thompson from Community Works Oconee delivered copies of a report from that session and provided an oral summary of the report to the Board at its meeting on June 9.

Georgia does not have registration by party, and how someone votes is secret.

The political parties, however, classify voters based on which ballot they select if and when they vote in the party primaries.

Notes

This post is a collaboration between Katie Vickery and myself.

The Oconee County Republican Party does not allow recording of its meetings.