Smith: Responsibility needed on School Board

ALBANY, Ga. — Donnie Ellen Smith says she gives the current Dougherty County Board of Education a Triple A rating.

“Arrogant, audacious and asinine,” is how the 73-year-old describes the school board’s actions in recent months.

“It is corrupt,” said Smith simply. “They are not voting to support the students (in the system), they are voting to support themselves and their agendas.”

Smith, who is running against longtime incumbent Milton Griffin Jr. for his District 2 seat, said the school board is the entity that needs a lesson.

“They need to take responsibility for what is going on in our schools,” said the Republican candidate. “We can’t continue to warehouse our kids and then pass them when they get to a certain age and send them out in the world to fend for themselves.”

Smith said the county’s graduation rates, the recent failure to make Annual Yearly Progress and the CRCT erasure investigation all point to the need for Dougherty schools to accept and promote responsibility.

The Albany resident of 20 years said if elected she will prioritize and promote a curriculum that actually teaches the students.

“They are not really teaching the children anymore,” Smith said of the local school system. “Our students are already at a disadvantage because so many of them do not have two parents in the house to help them form a good foundation on principles and values so that they can get a good education.”

Smith said the babysitting mentality of some of the area’s schools continue to slight the students of Dougherty County and fail to highlight and encourage the talented and bright youth in the community.

The candidate said she believes community involvement is the key to creating a better local educationational environment for Dougherty youths.

“If you truly care about (the students) and Albany, then people need to be involved and vote,” said the 1955 graduate of Frayser High School in Memphis, Tenn. “(People) have to get up off the couch and stop griping all the time and do something about it.”

It was this mentality that compelled Smith to run for the school board seat.

“I just couldn’t take it anymore,” she said. “Somebody has got to do it.”

Smith said she knows that voters in District 2 are loyal to Griffin and admits to being somewhat “outnumbered,” but she said those who disagree with her opponent’s past and current actions need to vote for change.

Smith, whose husband Lonnie is running for the District 2 seat held by Dougherty County Commissioner John Hayes, said several people have asked whether she would fall into the good ol’ boy system of the School Board if elected.

“That (comment) really hurt my feelings,” said the candidate, who has been going door-to-door in the second district to speak to her neighbors about the election. “I told them that they obviously didn’t know me that well. I’m not that type of person.”

Smith said she had been contemplating running for the school board seat for the past four years, but made her decision after she found the board was “totally out of control.”

Smith has been married to Lonnie Smith for 55 years. They have three grown children: Curtis, Theresa and Pamela. The Smiths, who have lived in Albany for 20 years, have five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Through Lonnie Smith’s work as a design aircraft engineer, they have lived all over the United States, Indonesia, Asia and Europe. Donnie Smith worked with her husband until she retired in 2000.