Candidates with history in community seek Bibb BOE District 2 post

Both candidates for the District 2 seat on the Bibb County school board have committed decades to the Macon-Bibb County community.

Incumbent Thelma Dillard, who has been on the board since 2012, was on Macon City Council for 20 years after a 40-year career as an educator.

“I’m very familiar with education. I’m very familiar with this community,” Dillard said. “I’ve served in this community in many capacities.”

During her time on the school board, Dillard has also held all three officer positions: president, vice president and treasurer. She said top priorities for the district going forward should continue to be reading and financial responsibility, as they have been since Superintendent Curtis Jones came on board in April 2015.

“I’m promoting and supporting the reading initiatives with our superintendent. We’re already doing that,” Dillard said. “The next initiative for me is finances, that we find ways to continue to finance our school system.”

Dillard said she was particularly glad to have been part of the board that brought in Jones, and she wants to continue to work toward improving numbers such as graduation rates.

“I’m very proud of the school board,” she said. “I’m very proud of the work we’ve done.”

Her challenger, Tina Dennard, has a background in advertising but has spent the last 25 years volunteering with the Adopt-A-Role Model Mentoring Program that she helped start. In that capacity, she said that graduation has always been a goal for the children she’s worked with.

“My kids in the program, I make sure they get their golden opportunity, and that’s a high school diploma,” she said, citing a 98 percent graduation rate for participants.

She said one key to driving kids to graduation is getting involved with their home lives. Frequently, she’s found that participants in her mentoring program lack utilities and other basic needs at home.

“If you could eradicate challenges just with homes ... it’s amazing,” Dennard said.

The main ingredient to solving that problem and others in the district, Dennard said, is communication and involvement. She said she would aim to deliver “five star service” to the people in her district to make sure she is connecting students and parents with available resources.

“We just need to invest and involve them with our schools,” she said.

District 2 encompasses the areas surrounding Brookdale, Bruce, Ingram-Pye and Williams elementary schools, as well as Miller Middle School and Central High School.

The election is May 24.

This story was originally published May 11, 2016 at 5:02 PM with the headline "Candidates with history in community seek Bibb BOE District 2 post."