The failings, and therefore opportunities to campaign on a platform of change, are more difficult to find when running for school board in a county, Forsyth, with a public school system ranked high nationally, and No. 3 in Georgia, by the school-rating website schooldigger.com.
And it doesn’t get any easier if you’re Camille Fareri an assistant professor of literacy at Brenau University in Gainesville, running for District 2 on the Democratic ticket in a county predominantly Republican.
But Fareri cites another national rating, Newsweek’s annual best high schools in the nation survey, as a sign that there’s room to get better.
This year the magazine ranked South Forsyth High School as No. 202 in the nation, a tremendous achievement, she said. But not so far away, in Cobb, and Gwinnett, two high schools – Walton (ranked 80), and North Gwinnett (161) – performed better.
“I’m very passionate about education and I want Forsyth schools to continue to be a quality program,” said Fareri. “But there are things I think need to be changed. There’s an over-dependence on testing, and not enough emphasis on teaching higher order skills, critical thinking.”
Kristin Morrissey, running against her as a Republican for the seat vacated when one-term school board member Mike Dudgeon resigned to run for state representative, agrees that “overall Forsyth schools have done great,” but, she, too, sees room improvement.
“We’re going to have to figure out a way to deal with overcrowding in some of schools at a time when revenues are slowing but the population continues to increase,” said Morrissey. Some of the budget-tightening measures by the Board of Education are short-term -- “You can only hold off replacing computers and keep fixing equipment for so long” -- and the BOE will have to look elsewhere to save money, she said.
Last year, Forsyth opened five new schools and went through redistricting, reducing the number of portable classrooms from 174 to 53. But it will be harder to find the money to continue to add capacity to the school system, said Morrissey.
Fareri said, if elected, she'll be vigilant in keeping programs such as art and music in place even if the system is forced to make cuts. “Those [programs] are essential to our education and should not be cut out,” she said.
Morrissey said she would be especially vigorous supporting PROPEL, an initiative between the school system and Cumming Forsyth Chamber of Commerce, to increase the graduation rate in the county, now 89 percent. “I want to see that in the mid-90s, and ultimately 100 percent,” she said.
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