Following a weekend special called session that allowed Board Members to gather and interview candidates for the next Superintendent of the Polk School District, the selection has been narrowed down to two candidates.

Human Resources Director David Robinson shared this afternoon that those candidates are Assistant Superintendent and Polk County College and Career Academy CEO Katie Thomas, and Dr. Travis Thomas with the Carroll County Schools.

Dr. Katie Thomas is a well-known face around Polk County, a longtime educator and has been serving since 2006 in the district first as the Director of Career, Technical and Agriculture Education for the Polk School District, which reformed into the College and Career Academy with a campus at each high school. She’s since also added Assistant Superintendent to her duties following the promotion of Superintendent Laurie Atkins to her current role.

Prior to that, Thomas served at Cartersville High School, and has also worked as an Adjunct Instructor for the School of Business at both Chattahoochee Technical College and Georgia Northwestern Technical College. She still serves with the latter. Thomas has also served on a number of committees, helped form the Graduate Polk Student Success Center, Project SUCCESS, and with the Polk County Chamber of Commerce, among many other accomplishments and responsibilities during her time in education.

Thomas holds degrees from Georgia Highlands College (formerly Floyd College,) the University of West Georgia, Jacksonville State University, and Liberty University, which is where she earned her Doctorate of Education in 2014.

Dr. Travis Thomas from Carroll County Schools is the current Director of High Schools and Assessment, but he’s been in a lot of administrative roles since 2006. That includes Assistant Principal at Jonesville Middle School, Principal at Villa Rica Middle School and Principal at Bowdon High School. He also served as a Social Studies teacher and Boys Basketball Coach at Oak Mountain Academy and Villa Rica High School.

His education background includes Davidson College, the University of West Georgia, and graduate studies at the University of Alabama and Jacksonville State University. He was a Teacher of the Year at Oak Mountain Academy, and a Teacher of the Year at Villa Rica High School.

The two finalists will have to go through another round of interviews before the board can consider which will end up as superintendent, along with vetting each candidate. That will potentially take some time, so though it is possible there might be a decision during the January regular board meeting next month, it is more likely that a decision will be potentially made by February.

Robinson stresses that there’s plenty of time before the board has to make any final vote on who will take Atkins’ place. Her retirement is still pending, and coming up in June following the end of the 2021 academic calendar.

The district received 19 applications for the position of Superintendent when Atkins announced her plans to retire in November and the process began to find a suitable replacement. Because of the requirements of the state, when the district reached two finalists they were required to announce candidates to the public.