Although they are running on different party ballots, the candidates for the Hall County School Board Post 1 seat have the same ultimate goal – to support teachers.
Republican candidate Debra Jones Smith and Democratic candidate Angela Thomas Middleton both have a long history of education-related experience. Neither Jones Smith nor Thomas Middleton are strangers to the classroom, and both the candidates are former teachers.
Jones Smith taught biology at East Hall High School for 12 years, until the superintendent proposed a new career path to Jones Smith.
“He asked me if I'd be into administration,” Jones Smith said. “I said, ‘Well, possibly.’ So I looked into that, got a degree and I got hired when we opened up the middle schools in Hall County. I actually went to [East Hall Middle School] and became a middle school assistant principal. And I did that for 10 years.”
Jones Smith then served East Hall Middle School’s principal for five years, until she decided that she wanted to round out her experience with all age groups. She became Riverbend Elementary School’s principal for 12 years until her retirement.
Jones Smith keeps up with her teaching even throughout her retirement, and she works part-time at the University of North Georgia where she teaches an educational class for those who want to become leaders.
“I always tried to learn something new and different,” Jones Smith said. “And so it kept me kind of revitalized over the years. So I still enjoy it and I still love it. And so that's why I'm pursuing the Board of Education [Post 1 seat]. Maybe I can contribute something good there, too.”
Thomas Middleton also has strong ties to Hall County and has 30 consecutive years of classroom experience teaching health, P.E., biology and English as a second language. She was an East Hall High School graduate herself and was the starter on the 1979 East Hall Girls Basketball State Championship team.
Thomas Middleton taught at schools in Hall County, Dekalb County and schools in the Griffin/Spalding area. She also coached basketball, and in her retirement she has been involved in several community service projects, such as the restoration of the EE Butler Center.
“I have a multitude of different experiences that come from different [school] systems,” Thomas Middleton said. “And I think that makes me a very diverse candidate for this position.”
The former educator has emphasized diversity and inclusion during her campaign. She wished that Hall County Schools had the opportunity to get students involved with the EE Butler Center project, which was the site of the former, all-Black EE Butler High School.
“This is probably the only walking distance facility that is available in Hall County for the students on the south side,” Thomas Middleton said. “So with that being said, I run for diversity and inclusion. I don't want our diverse communities to be left out of the educational process or on the growth of our educational process. I want to make sure we have a seat at the table.”
As technology, curriculum and students’ learning needs continuously change, Jones Smith wants the Hall County School Board to anticipate these needs. Many students experienced learning loss during quarantine, and Jones Smith said Hall County Schools must boost its number of teachers and paraprofessionals to get students caught up.
“I think some of the things we have to do to keep good teachers are things like lowering the class size whenever we can and giving them additional support,” Jones Smith said. “I think a lot of what we're gonna have to do to get our kids back together will be things like small group instruction. Well, that requires more hands on deck.”
Jones Smith also said discipline and truancy are challenges that teachers are facing, since students got used to learning on their own during the pandemic. She thinks getting parents involved again will help alleviate behavioral problems.
“We have folks that are leaving public schools and going to private and Christian schools,” Jones Smith said. “We ought to be able to meet their needs. We've had a great school system. I don't think there's anything that we can't do in Hall County to meet their needs, we've just got to get that confidence back and get things going. [We need to] get parents back in the school because they’ve been out, and that's made them very uncomfortable when they weren't allowed to come into schools. I really felt that they were disconnected and didn't know what was going on. So getting parent involvement back on track and raising that up where there's a lot of transparency, and they know what we're doing.”
Thomas Middleton wants the Hall County School Board to support teachers by being more accessible and responsive to their needs.
“As far as our teachers are concerned, [it’s important] to be accessible, so that there are teachers who share their successes and maybe the educational challenges before it gets to the boardroom, before the tensions arise,” Thomas Middleton said. “I think this would be an opportunity to bridge our gap of communication that we have in our community. I would also show my support for teachers by being the voice at the table. Education and being a classroom teacher is the only thing that I know.”
Thomas Middleton said she wants to reduce the workload that is placed on many new teachers. She would do this by encouraging the school board to limit the amount of extracurricular activities or clubs that first-year teachers are expected to run.
Alternatively for veteran teachers, Thomas Middleton wants to give them more time to enact the different learning techniques that they learn in workshops.
She also has a challenge for school board members.
“I would challenge every board member to go into the classroom and serve at least three times a year,” Thomas Middleton said, “so that they have an idea of what's really going on. They can see firsthand while they continue to vote and make decisions for all teachers.”
Another challenging balancing act that both candidates must consider is how involved parents should be in their childs’ education. Jones Smith and Thomas Middleton both encourage parent involvement, and they say parents should always feel comfortable addressing issues in parent-teacher conferences.
Although Jones Smith agrees with parents’ rights and their ability to request alternate readings, she believes parent demands need to be reasonable enough for teachers to accommodate. In general, she is not in favor of educational bills from legislators and thinks rules and regulations should be created by Georgia’s Department of Education.
“The state board and the superintendent need to get in there and figure out what we need to do to make sure that parents are having their rights,” Jones Smith said. “I'm big on parent rights, we need those parents, we want them in there. But at the same time, we can't tie teachers' hands to do that. So you've got to have people who really know education, to figure those things out.”
Jones Smith encourages teachers to be careful with the books they assign, but she does not believe in the outright banning of books from libraries. She suggested creating a section of the library where students can still access books with challenging topics if they have a signed parent permission slip.
“Some of the topics in the books that people don't like are things that some parents are okay with and they feel like are part of society today,” Jones Smith said. “There are ways they can do that without it being something in the mainstream curriculum that we teach.”
Thomas Middleton agrees that teachers need to stick to the curriculum. She encourages teachers to focus on the entire class, instead of catering to just one student.
“Parents have an opportunity to be as involved as they would like to be,” Thomas Middleton said. “And so we can, I would like to encourage them to continue to be involved with their, with their child's education. But I support teachers when trying to maintain that culture for 30 students, and not just one. So I would always encourage teachers to teach facts to teach history facts and stay within the curriculum.”
When teaching historical topics like slavery, Thomas Middleton said students need to learn the facts. However, parents should always be able to request alternate readings if they feel like their children are not ready to learn the material.
“Alternative readings are available for the children whose parents want to shelter them for a little while longer,” Thomas Middleton said. “Our teachers should be commended for providing those alternative readings that are not as harsh or maybe just plain truths. Maybe they aren't going to detail as much, maybe they just glaze over it a little bit. So those alternatives are there.”
And as school safety weighs heavily on teachers’, parents’ and students’ minds, both Jones Smith and Thomas Middleton would like to see an increased presence of law enforcement in schools.
Jones Smith has had discussions with Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield about adding school resource officers at every school in Hall County. However, that could cost between $3 to $4 million.
“Hall County hasn't had so many issues with safety stuff, but you don't have to wait till something's happened and then fix it,” Jones Smith. “Safety is one of the things you have to be proactive on. So I think we need to have our schools evaluated. I think if the experts say you need a resource officer, I think we need to do that.”
Thomas Middleton recently took a class with the Hall County Sheriff’s Office, and she said she would like to maintain a positive relationship with the agency.
“They are so excited with their collaborations that they've made with the Hall County Schools and to be able to bring those innovative and modern technologies to the safety of our schools,” Thomas Middleton said. “And I think we would need to continue to work with them so that we don't become an institution that is different from learning.”
More information about Jones Smith can be found on her campaign Facebook page, and more information about Thomas Middleton can be found on her website.
Election day is set for November 8.
