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What are your general goals and hopes for the board moving forward?

mentioned to me casually that residents can attend the school board meetings. It never occurred to me in a million years. I thought, “well, maybe I should kind of know what I’m praying for, right?” So last September was the rst time that I started coming to the school board meetings. I started getting to know the personalities and seeing what was going on. It was OK at rst but there was some obvious tension.

I started to see that they were reviewing policies and voting on policies. Because of my background as a contracts manager, I would read what the board was going to look at before I came to a meeting. I started having ideas, so I did send suggestions into the board on a couple of policies that I knew they were looking at.

ere was a brief mention that they really needed to create a policy review committee, so I volunteered for that. Bill Dallas, the interim superintendent at the time, took me up on that. I’ve piece-by-piece sort of kept getting more and more involved.

What do you think that you can bring to the board?

I’m happy to be working with Rhonda and Heather. I got to know them a little bit through the process of these meetings, and I think that I can help bring a positive and conservative bent to the board and be able to support the kind of conservative policies that I believe are the desires of this community.

I met with Dan Snowberger, the new superintendent, and I think he’s going to be a really, really positive in uence. I’m excited to work with him, to work with the board, and with whoever the next people will be.

Rhonda Olsen and Heather Booth’s goals are transparency to the parents, making sure that everybody knows that the parents are the rst and foremost teachers of their kids. ey should be in control of things and know everything that is going on. So we want to have transparency to the parents, transparency of records, and with curriculum. We want transparency overall and everything that goes on with the kids.

I know they are in favor of, and so am I, of a traditional education. A good traditional education. e di erent programs are really important to me. Not every kid wants to go to college. And we need to have everybody prepared for the next step, no matter what it is. College, or going directly into the workforce, or going into the military or whatever, everybody needs to have a good, traditional education and then opportunities to learn and have successful roles at directly out of high school.

What does “traditional education” mean to you?

It means teaching regular math, not common core, or whatever they call that thing, because that doesn’t make sense to me. History that is accurate, and not contrived. And kind of the normal English, math, sciences, you know, all the basic things that people need a background in. Whether they’re going to use that forever or not is beside the point because everybody should have a well-rounded idea of those subjects. Because if you don’t know it at all, you don’t know if you want to pursue it further.

Since it has been such a hot-button topic as of late for the Elizabeth School District, what is your perspective on critical race theory and social- emotional learning in schools?

I do not want those blatantly in our schools. I don’t know if it’s here or not. You hear things, so I don’t have any real factual basis to know anything. I know it’s not blatantly here for sure. But I believe that maybe publishers might be sneaking things in. I think we need to do a curriculum review to see if there’s anything in there. It is much easier to keep it out than to get rid of it once it’s here. So, we just need to be sure that the conservative values of this community are upheld and that things that aren’t necessary for our students to learn are not creeping in.

How would you make a space for those people in the community that don’t identify as conservative? Is there a space for them in the Elizabeth School District?

Well, traditional education is going to be good for anybody regardless of those things. If they believe in those things, that’s ne, and they can teach it at home.

In a school board meeting from Feb. 13, Elizabeth High School principal Bret McClendon encouraged members of the school board to come and visit the classrooms and be involved in schools instead of just sitting on the board making policy. Do you have any intention or goal of doing any sort of volunteerism or being involved in the schools outside of your role with the board?

I probably will do that. To be honest this past couple of weeks has been such a whirlwind and my brain is about ready to explode. I do think that would be a good idea because it is one thing to talk about the schools, it’s another thing to see it from the inside. So I think that is an excellent idea and I’m hoping that each of the board members might do

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that on some level. We might be able can see what their thoughts are and see what we can do to alleviate any concerns, worries, issues, whatever. is board and the new superintendent and the whole thing, I’m excited to work with them and to look forward. To have a positive outlook and make sure our students have the best education and the best safety that we can give to them so that they have a great start.

What else do you do for fun and what else have you been doing since you’ve retired?

My daughters and I communicate frequently. We have family dinners. Dave and I are just getting involved in going to Anytime Fitness and the Silver Sneakers program. I just started a “functional aging” class there. My favorite show is probably “Rosemary & yme.” ey are two ladies who have a gardening business together and they solve murders.

I am active in my church. I lead or co-lead a couple of di erent prayer groups and I’m involved in Bible studies at church. I am the administrative lead for one of them and teach about 50% of the time. It’s a 50-plus women’s group. It is a very active, fun and funny group of ladies.

I’m also this year’s coordinator for the National Day of Prayer event that is in Elizabeth on May 4th.

Is there anything else you want to let the people of Elizabeth and Elbert County know?

Mary Powell will hold her position as secretary of the board through November 2023, when she will be eligible for election.

To contact Powell, send emails to mpowell@esdk12.org.

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