Post 7 candidate Caly Hess vying for change in the school district

HOUSTON COUNTY — Having relocated to Houston County 12 years ago, Caly Hess is not just a resident but a parent deeply invested in the local school district, running for post seven in the Houston County Board of Education.

She has two children: an adult graduate of Veterans High School and a seven-year-old currently in the district. While Hess’s professional life is in cybersecurity, her heart lies in education and her experience as a parent inspires her advocacy.

“Public school education, in general, is incredibly important to me, and most importantly, it is the fact that I still have a son in the district that I very much want to see succeed. I saw where the district didn’t do so great with my firstborn, and I didn’t want to repeat those mistakes with my second one. So, I’m running to try to make some changes,” she said.

Eschewing traditional campaign methods, Hess is taking a grassroots approach to her bid for change. Her largely word-of-mouth campaign is designed to foster open dialogue within the community, encouraging residents to share their experiences with the district and their ideas for improvement.

If you haven’t seen a campaign sign for Hess, this is also by design. She said campaign signs are hard to recycle, and she believes more in open forums, and making connections with teachers, parents, bus drivers and the community.

“It’s mostly people that knew. People have known for years that I was going to run for it. And then, when I finally put my name on the ballot, a bunch of people said, ‘I will vote for you,’” she said.

Hess found her inspiration to campaign in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. She mentioned that the district started discussing reopening without implementing mask or social distancing restrictions. At a July 2020 meeting, she and 11 other parents were not allowed to voice their concerns and she was escorted out after being vocal. In August 2020, she took the podium after one concerned citizen was allowed to speak in July.

“When I brought up that they were violating my First Amendment rights by suppressing my ability to speak, they then allowed me to speak in the following month,” she explained.

Hess said that she provided the district with a risk mitigation plan that had been approved by other districts, but said the advice in the plan was ignored. She also claimed the district tried to find articles disproving the efficacy of masks in order to avoid implementing policies.

“I saw no wisdom in the way that our administration handled COVID,” she said.

After the pandemic, Hess expressed her desire to run in 2022 but instead decided to support then-candidate Jeremy Fermin. Now, she is determined to bring a current parent’s perspective to the board.

“I’m still feeling that the school board is lacking modern beliefs and needs to be educated in what people today and families today are going through. I believe the entire school board only has kids that have graduated, now. So I felt it was necessary for me to continue attempting to run this year,” she said.

Hess is optimistic that her involvement in politics will lead to discussions, particularly about the district’s budgeting.

“I do believe that my presence in these forums and my presence online and my presence in this whole political market as it is — because it is a market — brings up solid questions. The amount of shock on people’s faces when I’ve brought up specific examples about spending waste in SPLOST and spending waste in superintendent’s pay, shows that a lot of people are not aware of how much of our budget is possibly spirited away in questionable ways,” she said. “And so, as long as I’m here, at least I’m going to raise the questions that everybody else is afraid of raising.”

If elected, one of Hess’s main priorities is addressing the budget. Both she and post 1 candidate Dr. Tim Riley agree that an independent forensic accountant would be a valuable tool to examine where the budget can be used more effectively. 

Hess said one area the budget could be redirected to is supporting the arts, citing specifically a lack of budget for purchasing and repairing equipment. On a personal note, she said the arts were instrumental in encouraging her son’s social development.

“Music education is what saved my first kid. He didn’t know how to socialize. He didn’t know how to stabilize until he joined the band program. And then he made friends, and he found teachers that he trusted, and that was the change,” she said.

Hess suggested a change in leadership for both the superintendent and the transportation department could help reduce costs. According to her, the superintendent is overpaid, and the transportation department’s culture is causing high employee turnover, leading to more money spent to train new drivers. This shortage results in longer bus rides for children, she explained.

“We need an audit and an overhaul of the Department of Transportation,” she said. “We need to see how we can keep our bus drivers and then that would help with all of these very, very long rides for some of our kids. Why did we buy 66 new buses but we don’t have 66 drivers for them?”

Hess mentioned that she has to pick up her child to ensure he arrives home on time. She also gave an example of a friend whose child has to board the bus nearly three hours early due to disability, resulting in the child being unable to take their medication at the prescribed time, and more problems in school.

“They are required by law to provide fair and equitable transportation and that’s not fair at all. That is literally detrimental to this child,” Hess said.

Recent legislation concerning school choice vouchers has also raised concerns. According to Hess, the vouchers pose a threat to the public school system. She believes that addressing educational shortcomings could also help alleviate worries about students opting for vouchers. Hess also emphasized the importance of creating an environment where parents and teachers feel safe to voice their concerns to the board without fear of retaliation against teachers.

“We’re not talking with the school board. We’re talking at the school board. It’s not a dialogue. It’s us screaming into the void and hoping somebody listens. They need to change the format for the way that they interact with parents because I think it is detrimental. It gives us a glimpse into how our teachers feel. Our teachers are screaming into the void,” she said.

Hess emphasized the importance of preparing students for success in various ways. She shared her adult son, despite being a good student, was not adequately prepared for college upon graduating.

“He took one final, which was because he had one dual-enrollment course in high school, and they required a final because of dual enrollment. Otherwise, he never took a final the entire time he was in Houston County schools, because he was a B and A student. He failed out of college because he didn’t know how to take an exam. We are setting our kids up for failure. If they’re good enough to be an A and B student in high school, they’re going to fail out of the college system,” she said.

Hess hopes the district can promote lifelong learning and elevate Houston County schools to become a highly-rated district, recognized far and wide.

“Everyone’s talking about keeping them here. Well, maybe it’s more important for us to make sure our kids can exist on a global scale. And then if they disappear to, say, an IBM plant and then become CEO of IBM because they did such an amazing job, then they go, ‘I really loved going to school in Houston County.’ We should build our next plant in Houston County. That’s the only way we’re gonna bring industry to us. So I think we’re just not looking at it on a long-term basis.”

As someone honest, upfront and an advocate for integrity, Hess said treating the root cause of issues in the district and ensuring transparency will have a long-term positive impact on children.

“Why I was different and stand out from others, is that I want to find the root cause of the issue and fix the root cause of our issues,” she said. “So that all the symptoms will dissipate over time, and we can have a great district, without all the lies and cover-ups and omissions of what actually is problematic in our district.”