County schools make changes for 2017-18 academic year

July 19, 2017 by Heather Miller

In preparation for the start of the new school year, the Anderson County School System has announced the following changes to its administrative team for 2017-2018.

The changes were announced by school officials during the Anderson County Board of Education meeting on Thursday, July 13, at their regular scheduled monthly meeting.

Andrea Russell has been named as the new Data and Evaluation Coordinator and Middle College Supervisor for Anderson County School District.

Russell accepted the position last week and will take over her new administrative role with the system this week, school officials said.

Russell comes to this position after serving since 2011 as principal for Anderson County High School. Before that, she was employed for some time as a math teacher for the Anderson County School District, and received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The University of Tennessee-Knoxville.

She is taking over for Josh Tipton, who is joining Middle State University as a professor of education. Tipton was promoted last year to Data and Evaluation Coordinator and served for 12 years with Anderson County schools, working first as a teacher at Clinton Middle and Clinton High School, and later as an assistant principal at Clinton High School.

It is this vacancy left by Tipton that has prompted the shifts in administrative roles.

Replacing Russell as principal at ACHS is Ben Downs, who was serving as assistant principal and head baseball coach at ACHS. Downs has nine years of experience at ACHS and 12 years of experience in education total.

According to Director of Schools Dr. Tim Parrott, Downs will serve as interim principal until school officials have completed interviewing andidates for the principal position and made a selection.

“We appointed Ben Downs as interim principal at ACHS to fill Russell’s vacancy. With school about to begin, we really couldn’t wait three weeks or more to do interviews,” Parrott said. “I feel like we’re going to do a great job this year. I have confidence that Russell will continue to move the school system forward.”