It is rare to have the opportunity to be part of something really great. I was privileged to have that opportunity from 1978-1990 as a member of the Fayette County Board of Education.
In 1978 Fayette schools were ranked 67th out of 119 counties in a state that was ranked 49th in the nation. Many parents and educators wanted to improve the education we provided the children of our county.
The administration worked very hard to provide us useful information: demographics, projected growth patterns, projected building needs, effective school sizes and effective curriculums. They sent surveys out to four-year and two-year colleges, and technical schools, most popular with our students, and asked what we were doing well, where we needed to improve, and what we were omitting. They also sent out surveys to first-year graduates, asking basically what they were now glad they learned, what they wished they had learned and what they needed the opportunity to study. The administration also interviewed local businesses and asked what they needed for our graduates to know.
The administration compiled all that information and showed us the emerging patterns which told us where we needed to be. Then they involved teachers and parents to determine where we actually were, which was, sometimes, hard to do. Acknowledging where we were was, sometimes, even harder.
We slowly began to move from where we were to where we needed to be. We made changes to many things, but primarily in two areas: the curriculum and allocation of limited monies. At first we concentrated on the basics: reading writing, science, history and arithmetic, what needed to be taught, what methodology was best for our children. Then we went on to the arts, music and sports—all necessary.
I wish I could say that you just made the decision to be a good school system and it was so. But my experience was that each choice, each decision, each vote took you a little closer to a good school system or a little further away. Few decisions were as stark as: do you hire one more administrator or do you leave the administration too lean a little longer and hire 3 or 4 more teachers; do you sod the football fields, or do you sprig them this year and buy more books. Very few decisions were inconsequential.
Our basic goals were three: 1) to keep our limited funds as close to the child as possible; 2) to offer an effective, classic curriculum using a variety of good teaching methods. And when our children walked through our doors they were limited only by their dreams, abilities, work ethic and choices; 3) to create and maintain a standard of excellence in Fayette County Schools. It was that simple; it was that difficult.
Did any one of us make all the right decisions all of the time? No, not one. Looking back, it seems the more we all kept our goals in mind; the better decisions we made. Slowly and then faster and faster we began to see progress.
How did we know we were working closer to our goals? When our students test scores improved to the point that our school system was ranked number one in the state. When our students competed nationally and succeeded. When our students were being accepted to ivy-league schools like Brown and Yale, to military academies, to Auburn and Georgia Tech, to technical schools all over, and when our students had good jobs upon graduation. When over two hundred teachers applied for a single job opening. When our teachers and administrators were invited to other counties and made presentations on their methods. When parents volunteered to help and were welcomed. When local, businesses created their own vision statements. And when a large group of students wrote a letter to the Superintendent, complaining that too many announcements were coming over the loud speaker too often. It was interrupting their studies.
I commend all of the many teachers and staff, who, continue to hold to the high standards of Fayette County and do what is right instead of what is easy.
Is Fayette Schools’ time of excellence over? It does NOT have to be. It can rededicate itself to being what it has been for so many years—a place where children have the opportunity to acquire the one thing that can never be taken from them—a good education. It can be a place where a large group of ordinary people do EXTRAORDINARY things—choice by choice, decision by decision and vote by vote.
Suzanne Lee Johnson
Former member,
Fayette County Board of Education
