"The beginning is always Today,"Mary Shelley(1797-1851), English novelist, best known for creating Frankensteinas well as being the wife of romantic poet, Percy Shelley.

Though not exactly the dawn of a new era, our DeKalb County School District starts this week with a new and complete School Board, as well as a freshly minted, though experienced leader, serving as School System Superintendent.  It has been awhile since many have felt able to say this...but with this fresh slate and start, comes again, hope.

Hope for focus on the classroom, hope for adults acting like adults, and focusing on the business of educating our children, and hope for a new day in public education...instead of endless waiting for the next shoe to drop.  And given the nearly $1-billion in tax resources collected annually by this system, hopefully tighter management will turn today's deficits into tomorrow's surpluses.  The DeKalb County School District carried virtually NO DEBT as recently as a decade ago.  We are far from there now.

An impressive and wide range of experience and resumes comprise this new board.  Aged from 31 to 61, spanning from Generation X to the Baby Boom, current and former parents with students in DeKalb Schools, DCSD alumni and several previously active within their neighborhood schools, or civic associations also working to strengthen public education in DeKalb County.

As a near lifelong resident of DeKalb, I was surprised to see and learn, that I barely knew any of these volunteers putting their shoulders up against such a challenging grindstone.   And though this six largely matched the demographic composition of the group which they replace, their experiences are not identical.  Degrees from Harvard, multiple post-secondary and a handful of Ph.Ds, a wealth of business experience and the majority have other gainful employment, and will not be 'living' off of their modest wages from serving on this board.

Time will tell if this group can gel, and if along with the three surviving and newly elected trio, sworn in during January, if and when they individually disagree, can they still be agreeable.   In a high performing team, disagreements and dissent still occurs, but the work and results of the collective typically outshine the results from individuals.  Picture the Atlanta Falcons of 2012, versus the expansion Falcons of so many long and losing seasons.

In acting Superintendent Michael Thurmond, this new board has a proven leader, with a track record of meeting challenging situations, finding a better path out, and leading teams in the right direction.  He did that with the Georgia Department of Family and Children Services and later at the Georgia Department of Labor, and he can do it again with the DCSD.

There is no perfect governmental body, appointed or elected.  Part of the beauty of our system is its built in adversarial model, with separation of powers, multiple political parties and points of view and all formed on a bedrock of civility and the rule of law.  High performing groups early on define their strategic mission, focus on their priorities and agreed group agenda...and work towards those critical missions. 

Individual board members may have individual concerns, and will certainly respond to constituents in their districts, but those interests should always be superseded by the desire to improve classroom performance and student outcomes first. 

For decades, the DeKalb School System led the state in standardized test scores, graduation rates, athletics and numerous other benchmarks of excellence.  That level of performance continued through the early 1990s, despite white flight, significant growth of private schools and the almost overnight explosion of the Gwinnett County School System, helmed by a former senior DeKalb school's administrator.

"Our greatest hope is to help the DeKalb County School District find its way back to being one of the highest performing school systems in the southeastern United States.  That was still possible as late as the 1990's and it remains possible today," said Mark Elgart, President and CEO, AdvancEd, the parent organization of SACS.

I don't know about the rest of you, but let's get behind this new board and Superintendent and help them retain our full system accreditation as well as build back excellence into the day to day reality of our DeKalb County Schools.  I'll be looking for you at the next PTA meeting.