After dramatic disruptions recently, there’s now reason to believe that the DeKalb School District is turning back toward productive work. That would mean the district, its newly constituted Board of Education and its recently named superintendent are moving past the headlines and uproar that had drawn unwanted attention to both Georgia’s third-largest school district and the broader metro region.
The leader of the district’s accrediting body said recently that the prospect of lost accreditation is now less likely. That’s an improvement, even as the district faces a long road toward regaining full accreditation.
One step forward at a time beats decline any day, especially given DeKalb’s recent past. The removal of six of its board members and their replacement by Gov. Nathan Deal was a dramatic, but necessary, move needed to help push the district away from turmoil and back to what should be its reason for existence: educating 99,000 children.
That obligation had been too easily obscured by the adult antics and bickering that dominated the spotlight for too long. They included the hasty departure in February of the superintendent after barely a year on the job. Board problems helped influence the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) to place the district on probation, thereby putting its accreditation at risk.
DeKalb’s struggles are not over. A legal challenge to the controversial law that let Deal remove six of nine elected board members is pending before the Georgia Supreme Court. Financial challenges demand long-term solutions. That means DeKalb must learn to do more with less.
Those are some of the tasks now before the district’s leadership. As best anyone can tell at this point, the new board members seem an accomplished, capable group. They’ll need every bit of skill and savvy they can muster to help guide DeKalb toward success. The same can be said of new Superintendent Michael Thurmond, who likewise brings considerable talent and an education outsider’s advantage to the district.
The challenges ahead for DeKalb are large, and the skeptics are many, both in this region and statewide.
Yet with competent, innovative, courageous leadership, the job ahead is a doable one. For the sake of DeKalb’s schoolchildren, there should be no other outcome.
Andre Jackson, for the Editorial Board.
