Once upon a time, there was

only one public high school in Fayette County. Boys would drive their

trucks to school with shotguns stashed in the back and cut class to go

deer hunting. Some elementary schools housed only two or three classrooms.

For most of Fayette County's 96,000 current population, the rural lifestyle

of the mid 1960s and 1970s experienced by longtime residents like Greg

Powers, a 1978 graduate of Fayette County High School and elected school

board member, is ancient history. But for Powers, those days are fodder

for colorful stories and recollections of lifelong friendships.

"It was a different way of life... that small community feel is gone.

We've changed from a rural setting to an urban setting," Powers said

recently in response to some questions posed to him and his fellow board

members by Alan Richard, a writer for Education Week.

Richard was in town to profile Fayette and DeKalb county schools for an

upcoming article on schools in the 21st century. He asked the board what

changes they have experienced and what they expect will happen in the

coming years.

Board member Connie Hale

said "growth" is the most pressing change facing the educational

system of the county. Recent and anticipated annexations partnered with

large-scale development plans, obviously change the "whole scene

of the county," Hale said.

Fayette County's superlative educational system has attracted more and

more families with school age children to move into the county, the board

members said. "We have the strongest special education program in

the state, two schools of national excellence, and first place national

Science Olympiad winners," reported board member-elect Janet Smola.

Hale added that more than 10 high school graduates from Fayette County

schools this year have received appointments to the nation's military

academies.

Powers remembers when none of the public schools in the county were accredited.

That was in 1968, the year after his father became principal of Fayette

County High School. Four years later, his father would become superintendent

and begin the work of upgrading the county's growing school system.

The biggest change, according to board members Hale, Powers, and

Mickey Littlefield, was the construction of Atlanta's Hartsfield International

Airport, an event which set the wheels in motion for Fayette County to

evolve from a poor agricultural county to a prosperous suburb of highly

educated residents.

Littlefield, who moved to Fayetteville from College Park, called the airport

a "blessing and a curse... it created jobs but ruined the town."

The board praised parents for the support they offer the schools, noting

also that these same parents, "demand excellence in education."

The next hurdle, they told Richard, is to pass the proposed $65 million

bond issue Nov. 7 for new school construction and to meet the standards

in Gov. Roy Barnes' education reform plan.

Hale has often referred to the Fayette County School System as a "work

in progress." She explained that what's happening in the system today

has evolved over the years. The workings of previous boards and former

superintendents have led the system step by step to its respectable position

statewide.

Powers compared the future of the school system to a train ride. "We

have little control over the direction the train is taking," he said.

"But the children are on the train and with that in mind, we can

control the decisions."