Cherokee County Board of Education member Janet Read came out victorious in an election that .
According to unofficial results from the Cherokee County Elections and Voter Registration Office, Read defeated Georgia Charter Educational Foundation board member Danny Dukes for the position of chairman of the Cherokee County Board of Education. Read received 20,144 votes or 56.75 percent of the vote to Dukes’ 15,325 votes or 43.25 percent.
Neither Read nor Dukes answered their phones after the final numbers came in Tuesday night.
This was the first time the school board chairman was elected by Cherokee County voters. A controversial redistricting measure approved this year by Gov. Nathan Deal changed the seat to an elected position and drew current board chairman Mike Chapman out of his district. The redistricting bill also drew Read, who currently serves on the board, out of her district as well, prompting her to run for chairman.
One of the issues discussed by both candidates before the election was employee furloughs. This year, school system employees will have eight furlough days, and that was something Dukes had said he hoped to eliminate if elected by cutting spending in other areas.
However, Read said that moving money around isn't the answer to fix budget woes that have been plauging the school system for the last several years. In that amount of time, the school district's budget has been cut by $121 million.
Read will be working with two new colleagues next year. Two seats were up for grabs in the newly-created districts. Board members previously ran county-wide. In the District 1 race, Kelly Marlow defeated Kyla Cromer with 2,971 and 2,946 votes respectively; and in the District 2 race, newcomer Patsy Jordan ousted incumbent Kim Cochran. Jordan received 3,742 votes to Cochran's 3,665 votes.
Enjoy even more furlough days, next year CCSD Teachers! You earned every single one of 'em by voting for Read, Cromer, and Jordan! Hopefully, some layoffs will happen next year to get rid of some of these braindead teachers who'd so stupidly vote against their own self-interests.
Congratulations to Reid and Jordan.
Teachers will now get Ms. Marlow's salary as a Teacher Classroom Relief Fund...something neither Read nor your buddy Cromer had the guts to promise. If Marlow follows her campaign promise successfully (she'll need to get a lib. BOE member to flip. Steiner, perhaps?), Teachers won't be furloughed next year. A Marlow victory is a victory against Teacher Furloughs, Unfortunately, a Read win only means that another Furlough Lover is still on the board. Read == Bad for Teachers and Bad for Kids.
Of course, those 2 liberal Democrats have promised nothing but tax increases & furloughs for Teachers, who blindly support this strange, self-defeating policy.
That's a pipe dream, thanks to a union-backed PTA that does whatever the Board commands it and thanks to a Superintendent hell-bent on protecting the status quo. Several THOUSAND parents disagree with your contention that this is "over nothing". That's the problem - the Teachers & PTA think there are no problems whatsoever in the system. Yet, some 3300 children opt-out of the CCSD (via charter school and 2500 home-schoolers, who pay property tax and get nothing for it). And like most of the PTA and Teachers, you're grossly misinformed on funding. Not one penny of CCSD money has been used on the Charter school. If the First Amendment to the US Constitution is ever rewritten so that government can endorse a specific religion, you'll have a chance at free Christian schools. But good luck getting this current Board and Dr. P to ever go along with any option outside of the traditional public school. PS: A 75% HS graduation rate does not equate to 'top schools in the nation', sorry.