The Habersham County Board of Education has extended School Superintendent Matthew Cooper’s contract for another year. The unanimous vote by the board Monday evening (June 8) means Cooper will remain as superintendent through at least June of 2023.
High praise for Cooper
School board member Robert Barron made the motion to extend Cooper’s contract. He says he was happy to do that given Cooper’s performance.
“Mr. Cooper has guided this county to be one of the best in terms of educational development, safety protocols, attendance incentives, and overall faculty, staff,
student, and parent morale,” Barron tells Now Habersham.
Board chair Russ Nelson echoes those sentiments, saying no superintendent in the state deserves a contract extension more than Cooper.
“Mr. Copper has led the Habersham County School System to be one of the safest school systems in the state of Georgia and possibly the country. Under his leadership, Habersham Central High School has seen record graduation numbers and the school system as a whole has seen its highest testing scores ever,” Nelson says. “This contract extension is very much deserved and it is the least this board can do for Mr. Cooper.”
Vote of confidence
Cooper, who has served as Habersham County’s school superintendent for the past eight years, says he’s grateful for the board’s vote of confidence in extending his contract.
“This vote of confidence by our board of education allows me to make the hard decisions and to lead effectively in our school system,” Cooper tells Now Habersham. “Having the full support of the board of education allows a superintendent to do what is right for students and staff.”
Calling his time as superintendent “some of the best days of my entire education career,” the former Banks County Middle School principal says there is no place he’d rather be, even with the tough challenges ahead.
Cooper, too, sees COVID-19 as a continuing challenge as the system develops new guidelines on how to deal with it. Additionally, he says he’ll continue to focus on his top priority – safety.
Academically, his focus remains fixed on Habersham Schools’ mission of “Success for All Students”. “In particular, our school system will have a clear focus on literacy,” Cooper says. “I believe that proficient reading, writing, and communication skills are the key to success in most of life’s endeavors. I want to see more boys and girls reading on grade level. I am very excited about the new literacy resources our board of education purchased this past year for our eight elementary schools. I expect that we will begin to see real progress in the area of reading this coming school year.”
In three years Cooper will be eligible to retire. He says he may consider retirement when his newly-extended contract ends.
This story has been updated with additional comments from board members
