School board appoints director of career academy

State Dept. of Education specialist will take over Cobb position Sept. 16.

The Cobb County School Board has named a state Department of Education employee to serve as director of the career academy it plans to open in 2020.

Tiffany Barney, a Career, Technical and Agricultural Education program specialist with the Georgia Department of Education, was appointed by the school board to serve as director of the Cobb Career Academy. She will begin her service on Sept. 16.

According to her resume, Barney has been a program specialist with the state DOE since 2018. Before that, she was an instructional coach for the College and Career Academy in the Newton County System, a teacher in the Henry County School System and head statistician at the former Georgia Perimeter College.

Barney, whose salary will be $106,604.94, has bachelor, master, and doctorate degrees from the University of Georgia and an education specialist degree from Columbus State University.

The Cobb Career Academy, a $14.5-million project approved in March for construction, will be housed at Osborne High School, which is being upgraded to a four-story building.

The Academy, which will be funded with education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax dollars, will hold about 500 students and is an extension of the district’s Career, Technical and Agriculture Educational programs. The academy is expected to be completed by May 2020.

The school board also appointed Marc Smith to serve as chief technology and operations officer and accepted the resignation, effective Jan. 1, 2020, of Deputy Superintendent of Human Resources and Operations John Adams.