By Brandi Watters, Herald Bulletin Staff Writer
brandi.watters@heraldbulletin.com
ANDERSON - When the fall school year begins in August, a few top school officials will be gone.
Anderson Community Schools Personnel Director Rich Dickerson said recently that he and four other administrators, including the superintendent, have opted to retire at the end of the school year.
Dickerson said Assistant Superintendent Lennon Brown, Highland High School Principal Mark Finger, Superintendent Mikella Lowe and Food Services Director Larry Muckenhiarn have all given notice of retirement. Dickerson is also retiring.
In order to encourage retirement and limit the number of layoffs during its budget deficit, ACS is temporarily offering a $25,000 buyout option for teachers and administrators. As part of the agreement, all five retiring administrators will receive the buyout, along with standard retirement benefits.
In total, ACS has received 22 retirement notices, but will not release the names of teachers who've opted for the buyout over another year at ACS, according to Dickerson.
Those names will be made public at the April 14 meeting of the ACS school board.
On Wednesday, rumors indicated that Transportation Director Nancy Farley would also be retiring, and some even suggested that she was being forced out by ACS officials, but Farley said she isn't going anywhere.
"I'm an Anderson Community School girl by birth, and I'll probably die there because I want to see ACS come back to what it used to be," Farley said Wednesday.
Lowe said there was absolutely no truth to the rumor that ACS was trying to force Farley to retire. "I don't know where that rumor came from. I think people start to speculate, and I think sometimes speculation turns to truth as people pass it on."