Neither District 5 candidate provided much illumination in debate

Editor:

I am proud to say I vote. Not once every four years but at all elections, including primaries.

Recently I attended the debates for the District 5 School Board seat, soon to be vacated by Lee Muns, so that I could make a truly informed decision at the voting booth.

Here is what I learned: I am no closer to knowing which person best fits the position.

LouAnne Grove has a masters degree in education and teaches at Davidson Fine Arts School, both commendable, but she is not "in our" system as she stated repeatedly. Although she repeatedly mentioned that Davidson is the No. 1 school in Georgia, she fails to remind people that at Davidson if you don't make the grade or are a discipline problem you are out of there. Davidson is a charter school run privately yet funded by the state. Let's see her spend a year teaching at Butler or Westside. You can't compare public to private.

Mike Sleeper, on the other hand stated that he would be working towards the future needs of our schools, yet if he was informed he would know that Columbia County works on hindsight and can't keep up with current needs of its students, much less future needs. This county is willing to build for future needs when it comes to administration, but not use that money prudently to cover the current needs of the children. He said he may have to make some unpopular decisions. Would those be unpopular to those who elected him, or to those he sits next to in the board meetings?

Neither candidate made me feel like the quality of education for our children would be their first priority; however, they both said they wouldn't tell the teachers how to teach. Both will make good politicians someday as they both gave wonderfully vague answers to uncomfortable questions.

Cherie Portinga

Evans