Monday night, the Armorel School Board accepted the resignation of superintendent Jennifer Barbaree and hired her replacement, Tiffany Morgan.
The board also accepted the resignations of head basketball coach Gary Burnside and high school English teacher Kristie Lloyd.
Barbaree announced her plan to resign on July 1 during the February School Board meeting after her husband and former Gosnell head football coach Brandon Barbaree accepted the Fountain Lake head coach position in Hot Springs. The board accepted Barbaree’s resignation letter during Monday night’s meeting and hired Morgan as the new superintendent.
“It is with bittersweet regret I resign my position as Armorel Superintendent effective June 30, 2019. Due to a family move, I will no longer be able to live and work in Armorel,” Barbaree explained. “Armorel School District is absolutely the best school ever, and I am so thankful and blessed to have been a part of it. There are no words to explain how grateful I am to the school board, teachers, parents, students, and community for their encouragement, care, and support. I believe the board has made a wonderful choice of Ms. Tiffany Morgan as Armorel's new superintendent. She is familiar with Armorel and comes with a lot of experiences. She and I have hit it off, and she knows, I'll always be an advocate for Armorel and just a phone call away.”
Morgan started teaching for the Armorel School District in 1996 as a sixth grade teacher. She taught at Armorel for seven years and then taught at the Keiser Elementary School for three years. In 2006, she was the principal at West Elementary School in Osceola before becoming the principal at Osceola High School in 2012.
“I hope to take the knowledge and experience I have gained over my educational career into my new position,” said Morgan. “I am an educator at heart and the pursuit of bettering student education has been a driving passion in my life since I began my career in Armorel 23 years ago! I hope to bring this passion into every aspect of my position as superintendent and help Armorel to continue to grow and excel for many years to come.”
The board also accepted Burnside’s resignation and is currently taking applications for the boys basketball coaching position.
“Coach Gary Burnside has decided to resign as our boys basketball coach. While serving as superintendent, it has been a pleasure to work with Coach Burnside,” Barbaree said. “He stepped in as basketball coach during a tough time. During his short tenure, the boys made it to the elite eight in the state tournament. I appreciate what he has done for Armorel School District and the boys basketball program. We are currently taking applications for the boys basketball coaching position.”
Burnside explained, “I enjoyed my time here and I appreciate Coach (Charlie) Brown, the [athletic director], and the administration for giving me the opportunity here. Lot of good kids here. Lot of good staff to work with. I’ve enjoyed it. Just time to move on to something else now. I came here to finish that year and it’s been three years now and I just feel like we have the program in just a little bit better shape than what it was when we got here. So, we tried to do that and tried to improve each year. Last year was a little bit of a down year in the win- loss record wise, but I think they will be in good shape for years to come. They’ve got a lot of good talent coming up. I’ve enjoyed working with other coaches here. Coach (Shannon) Miller is great to work with and Mrs. (Deanna) Carr and Mrs. (Mandy) Miller do a great job with their stats and keeping books and I appreciate their efforts for that.”
Barbaree also stated that high school principal Teresa Lawrence recommended to hire Jena Weld next year as a math teacher.