Forsyth County Georgia Board of Education - Jere Krischel - 03/19/2024

First note, Happy Black history month - despite the common conception that Black history can only be acknowledged in February, I hold to the notion that our American history is common to every shade of skin, and can be celebrated every single day. Segregating Americans by color is racist, and I refuse to do it.

In other news, I'm happy to report that SB233 has passed the House and looks like it is on its way to being signed into law by the Governor. Last month, some children spoke out against this legislation, but I think they misunderstood its effect and its importance.

We are blessed here, in Forsyth County, with one of the top 3 county school districts in the state. But not every one of our 159 counties in Georgia is so lucky. Representative Mesha Mainor of District 56 noted this when she changed parties last year over school choice - her district has some schools with only a 3% reading and math proficiency. That's failing 97% of the time, which is completely unacceptable.

It is for these children, stuck in a cycle of poverty and poor education, that SB233 was intended. Giving lower income families $6500 vouchers to apply to either private school, or home school, sets up a system of incentives that no longer allows failing public schools to continue to fail without consequence.

All too often, school choice and public schools are seen as diametrically opposed to each other. But there is a distinct difference between defenders of good public schools, like we have in Forsyth County, and bad public schools, where only 3% of students are proficient in math and reading. Everyone in favor of good public schools should also be supporting policies that give children the opportunity to leave bad public schools.

I firmly believe that even if every parent in Forsyth County was offered vouchers, the quality of education in our schools is strong enough to keep the vast majority of them in the public school system - I certainly would for my family, and I'm proud we have public schools here that could thrive even in direct competition with alternatives. Our example of high performance should be the standard expectation for every child in the state, and SB233 helps meet that goal.

With that said, I'd like to ask the board to offer their support for SB365 and SB154, which will help improve the systems of incentives that protect our children from age inappropriate materials.

SB365 is actually modeled after our library checkout notification system started in 2022, which, along with our sensitive book permission system, adopted by the Board in response to parental concerns, seems to be a good compromise worth adopting statewide.

SB154 simply removes the exclusion on distribution of harmful materials to minors for our school libraries. In order to mitigate our risk of liability, we should add contract language for any book distributor providing us with materials, that holds them strictly accountable for only providing age appropriate materials. If we stop the problem at the source, with acquisitions, we won't have to worry about screening all of our materials after the fact.

And so on that note, thank you very much for your time, and again, I'd love to buy lunch for anyone who disagrees with me.