ChattCo school board hires CEO of Chattahoochee Valley Academy

The Chattahoochee County Board of Education has hired the leader of a program designed to help meet the region’s workforce needs through training and education in high school with partners from higher education and local industry.

Timothy Buchanan, the director of federal programs and Career, Technical and Agricultural Education for the Chattahoochee County School District, is now also the chief executive officer of the Chattahoochee Valley Academy, one of the newest members of the Georgia College and Career Academy Network, founded by Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle in 2006.

ChattCo is the closest school system to Columbus out of the 40 academies in Georgia to receive a grant ($3.1 million in this case) from the Technical College System of Georgia. Troup County opened one of these academies in 2015.

The Chattahoochee Valley Academy is scheduled to partially open next school year for as many as 200 students in renovated space at Chattahoochee County Middle and High School, ChattCo superintendent David McCurry told the Ledger-Enquirer in a phone interview Friday. The goal is for all of ChattCo’s 420 students to have access to the academy and for eighth-graders to use the facility for exploratory classes to introduce them to career pathways, he said.

A portion of the grant is for renovating classrooms. The other portion is for constructing various labs, such as manufacturing, welding, construction or automotive. McCurry said he expects the labs to open in time for the 2018-19 school year.

Before he started working for ChattCo in June, Buchanan was director of high school initiatives at Columbus Technical College, one of Chattahoochee Valley Academy’s partners along with Columbus State University.

Buchanan was among 12 applicants for the CEO position, McCurry said. A committee of academy board members selected three candidates to interview, and the board recommended Buchanan as the only finalist, which the school board unanimously approved, McCurry said.

“The academy CEO must have a strong knowledge of secondary and postsecondary education and should also have the ability to build community and business partnerships,” McCurry said in an email to the Ledger-Enquirer. “Tim is that person. … Mr. Buchanan has immersed himself in the community and has played an important role in the continued improvement efforts of our school system.”

This story was originally published April 28, 2017 at 6:04 PM with the headline "ChattCo school board hires CEO of Chattahoochee Valley Academy."