School board candidates speak about budgets, mental health during forum

CENTERVILLE –Six candidates vying for the Houston County School Board gave insight into their platforms during a school board candidate forum Tuesday night at Centerville City Hall. The forum was presented by the Houston-Peach branch of the American Association of University Women.

The candidates running for Post 1 and Post 7 spoke at the forum. Dr. Tim Riley and incumbent Dr. Rick Unruh are running for Post 1 while Angel Bowen Brown, Yancey Brown, Clyde Jackson Jr. and Caly Hess are running for Post 7. 

“I’m so glad to be here tonight,” Riley said. “I have been a strong proponent in education for many years, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here tonight to give you my views and take in your views.”

“I think it’s important to understand what it is that we are about to be a part of, and that the School Board is very unique,” Unruh said. “We are very fortunate in Houston County because we have had a great deal of support from the voters in this county in passing the E-SPLOST, and because of that, we’ve been able to open five schools in the last 10 years.” 

“The reason why I’m running is access for all students no matter what part of town you’re in,” Jackson said. “Also teachers, I know what they’re going through so I want to support them with our budget as far as making sure they get paid as they are overworked and underpaid.” 

“I run with a simple life goal to leave the world better than when I came into it,” Hess said. “My personal motto is to be net-positive.”

“When my husband and I got engaged one of the first things I said to him is that we have to live in Houston County because that’s where I want my kids to go to Houston County schools,” Bowen Brown said. “For me, it just shows that I already realized and knew that there was something special about Houston County.” 

“I stand before you today with a sense of commitment to this community,” Brown said. “As a candidate of the Houston County School Board of Education, I am deeply passionate about ensuring the success and what makes up our schools.”

The first question asked what candidates would do to help schools prepare graduates with a variety of skills, to be functional citizens, employees with a work ethic, financial managers and problem solvers. 

“We have to begin to focus on making sure that the students have the ability to pursue a very strong career,” Riley said. “It is incumbent upon us to make sure that our system has the strongest set of availability for the children to gain practical knowledge in different trades. We have to make trade schools an option and make not going to college not unattractive.”

“The basic literacy skills are the foundation,” Unruh said. “There is a new phonics program that the District has adopted and it is the most comprehensive thing that I have seen in my career. I really think this is going to help our primary students become better readers. If they are better readers then they will become better learners, … they will be better prepared for the world.” 

“We also have to listen to our business leaders and who we’re working for,”Jackson said. “We can have apprenticeships and shadow people that own their own business because that’s how kids can get access. I would have loved to have that back when I was in school.”

“We need to change the way we do our trade school paths to encourage more community involvement,” Hess said. “We need to actually be less specialized in these career paths. We need to be able to broaden out and allow these people that have the desire and interest to do a local trade school to still do exceptional classwork if they want to. Because maybe they’re going to make a different choice and become a better part of our community.” 

“The Georgia legislature acknowledged the financial literacy and approved a mandatory personal finance class in 2022 which will be implemented in Houston County in our high school economics classes supposedly by 2025, but probably 2027,” Bowen Brown said. “The good thing is we have some things here in Houston County that would not take long to implement. As a Board Member, it would be my mission to recognize ways to utilize the resources that are before us which are the programs that are already in place, the diverse community before us, and take those things and find new ways to benefit all students.”

“We have to realize that these children are not the same children that we were at their age,” Brown said. We really need to listen and find out what motivates them. We also need to look at increasing our math and science scores and we also need to create classes that are better suited for life. When I was in school, you learned how to budget, finances and saving.”

The next question mentioned a recent bill providing scholarships for children to attend private school if they are in an underperforming school. Candidates were asked what could be done to keep children in public school. 

“We need to find new and innovative programs to engage the students that will be impactful for them,” Brown said. “We can also look to increase online and hybrid learning to give the student and the parent the freedom to assist them in their education route.” 

“I believe that parent involvement and educational decisions are very important and allowing choice is a good thing. However, my goal as a Board Member would be if you live in Houston County, the choice should be easy, and you should choose Houston County schools,” Bowen Brown said. “We also have to listen to concerns from parents, teachers and students and proactively address them because feeling like you are heard is going to make you buy into the school system more.” 

“The voucher system does not benefit us,” Hess said. “The data from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the voucher system in no way helps underperforming students or schools. It’s a money grab.” 

“We want to be competitive and make sure that we hire the best teachers possible so those parents would not have to take their kids out of public school,” Jackson said. “We can use that money left over and give it back to the public school so we can use it with our technology and also use it to make smaller class sizes.” 

“This highlights the problem with taking the tax dollars away from public schools and giving them to private educational entities, and the sad fact is there is no good way to replace those funds,” Unruh said. “The expenses of the school remain the same so covering those losses will just mean spending in other areas.” 

“Eventually the well is going to run dry,” Riley said. “We should have never been in this situation in the first place as its incumbent upon our School Board to advocate for the needs of our county, whether that means talking to our County Commissioners or our State Representatives and senators that will keep the money from leaving our county.” 

Riley suggests that the county hire a forensic accountant to inspect the budget and determine where and how the money is being spent. 

“I am so sorry that we have been put in this situation in the first place,” he said. 

Another question posed to the candidates involved how they plan on handling teacher burnout and students who are not thriving in school. 

“Teacher burnout is a tragedy,” Riley said. “The things that teachers have to go through now are horrible, and I am so sorry that you have to do that. What we can do is support our teachers with programs to help them and to be paying them like rockstars. We need to be doing what we can to retain those teachers to make sure that they know they’re loved and cherished.” 

“Teacher burnout is a real thing and it is an issue,” Unruh said. “I think that we have done a great deal in raising the salaries, but it doesn’t matter what you make if you’re burnt out.”

Unruh and Riley both suggest that providing mental health support to these teachers is a way to prevent burnout. As for helping a student who is not thriving in school, Unruh said that kids need to know that there is an adult in the building who has their back and really cares about them.

“We need to find a way to connect teachers to students in ways outside of the classroom, including extracurricular activities.

“Teacher burnout is for real, and if you don’t have any discipline, you can’t be a teacher nowadays,” Jackson said. “They’re overworked and underpaid so we need to make sure that we support them with the issues they have now.”

“My sister and mother still teach. They get paid substantially better than they do in this county because they live in New Mexico, but they still go through the same kind of thing where policymakers, dozens of levels up, make the decisions and never step foot inside a classroom, Hess said. “That kind of lack of control can cause anybody to burn out rather rapidly. So if you want to address burnout, you really need to allow our teachers to help make the policies.” 

Bowen Brown agreed with Hess; both vouched for the board to visit schools and involve teachers in decision making.

“When it comes to teachers, I think the biggest thing is that we need to listen and make them feel heard and make them feel like somebody is paying attention to the issues that they’re dealing with,” Bowen Brown said. “Our youth of today don’t have quite the same resilience that some of us had dealt with, and you get that with experience, so mentor programs are good so that we can pair these teachers with someone that has had more experience.”

According to Brown, he has talked to teachers about this issue.  

“I mean no disrespect to anybody at all as I’m just telling you what they told me and that is, ‘The Board does not listen, care or care less about what they think’,” he said. “ With me on the Board, they are going to have a listening ear.”

Brown suggests mental health the increase of mental health facilities and mental health professionals inside the school. 

“We have to get the parents to buy back into the program of education and we must have open forums and invite parents out,” he said. “We need to have venues and avenues for us to get one-on-one with the parents and the students so that they can come to a collective agreement.” 

Early voting is underway, while election day is May 21.