Published in The Tifton Gazette, Thursday, April 10, 2008
By Angie Thompson/senior reporter

TIFTON — Liz Carson Keith said Wednesday that she will run for the District 3 seat on the Tift County Board of Education. Erick Willis announced to the board Tuesday night in executive session that he was vacating his post nine months shy of its expiration because of “professional reasons.”

Keith announced in February that she would not seek re-election to her District 7 at-large post and cited health issues as the reason. She is recovering from cancer. She said she wasn’t interested in running against a sitting board member. Now, she said, “Erick’s resignation opened that up.”

“I had decided not to run because of health reasons and the time it would take to dedicate myself to the at-large post,” Keith said Wednesday in a telephone interview. “I have considered it very carefully and I feel like I can do this without any problem at all. I feel like I am capable of fielding that position and I hope that the electorate will feel the same way and vote for me to represent them.”

Keith serves as the executive director of Moultrie Technical College’s Adult Education division. She said she wants to continue the progress the current board has made with improving academic standards and ever-increasing test scores.

“We still have to work on our graduation rates and getting our test scores up even higher,” Keith said. “Good is not good enough. We need to be the best. I feel we have made a good step in the right direction and I want to be a part of continuing that. We have fantastic teachers and great administrators, and we are right on the edge of taking a giant leap.”

Keith said that academic success is “extremely important” to the community because having highly trained and educated people with skills needed for the workforce will “carry the community forward.”

Former BOE chairman Richard Golden announced in February that he will run for District 7, the at-large post on the board Keith is vacating.

A new law passed in 2006 gives voters the voice on who leads the board. Previously, Tift County voters in six districts elected individual representatives and all voters selected a person to serve in the at-large post. Then, members of the board elected a chairman. The board’s chairman sets the agenda for meetings, controls the debate and makes committee appointments. Beginning with this fall’s elections, anyone qualified who lives in the county may run for the post.

Keith said vocational, technical and academic training are important as well as other aspects associated with a well-rounded education.

“We have to work on the physical aspect of our students, too, because nutrition and obesity are issues we have to face,” Keith said. “All of these things fit together and if we don’t really, really work together as a community, we are going to lose it.

“We have to work on the parents and have them become better. Our schools are the key and that is the reason why I am so adamant that we have to have top-quality schools in Tift County. If we don’t, we will never be where we want to be.”

Keith said she would like to see Tift County’s schools be the top-performing schools not only in south Georgia but in the entire state and nation.

“Until people start owning that and believe that we can do it, we never will be able to achieve it,” Keith said. “We’re starting the GATE program and want to put foreign languages in all of the grades so students begin learning foreign languages at an early age. That is what we are doing because we really believe it is what is going to make us exceptional.”

To contact senior reporter Angie Thompson, call 382-4321.