The Dade County Board of Education has found a replacement for retiring finance director Paula Stallings: Russell Raney, the consulting accountant who had helped her finalize the system's budget for the past few years.
Photo: File shot of Russell Raney presenting a budget to the B of E. Also visible is board member Johnny Warren.
Asked if it was unusual to hire a consulting CPA as a system finance director, Superintendent Jan Harris said not at all--Raney was in fact currently a school system finance director in Alabama. He was retiring from that this year and had decided to apply for the Dade vacancy. "We're just lucky the timing worked out the way it did," said Dr. Harris.
In addition to the finance job, the board has named Raney assistant superintendent of the system. He will start work March 9.
Also approved by the B of E at its meeting last week were a leave request by Dade Middle School teacher Angelicque Melton and the resignation of Dade Elementary school paraprofessional Caryn Dunn.
The board approved the following as substitute teachers: Beth Goodwin, Pamela Chambers, Brandy Little, Morgan Gass and Rebecca Velez.
Matt Sweat was named Dade High School e-sports coach. E-sports? Dr. Harris confirmed that "e-sports" means what it sounds like: video games. "It's recognized by the Georgia Athletic Association," she said. "They have competitions at the state level."
She said she'd seen Dade e-theletes (The Planet made that one up) (or The Planet thought it had, until it found the word on Wikipedia) in action, and sure enough they're sitting down, at the computer.
