Improved test scores, programs and communication are just some of the changes that the new Lee County Board of Education members want to make during their terms after being sworn in Tuesday.
Approximately 40 people attended the swearing in ceremony in the Core Curricular Building at Lee County High School as one incumbent, Mark Akinosho, and two new board members, Sandra Bowen and Ophelia Livingston, took the oath of office to begin their four-year terms.
“If I had to have a pet project, it’s going to be the increase in test scores and a more organized and efficient [Academically or Intellectually Gifted] AIG program,” Bowen said.
Akinosho is also interested in improving the AIG program, as well as other existing programs like Achievement Via Individual Determination and National Academy Foundation, which aid students in earning certificates that allow them to be job ready upon graduation from high school. While graduation rates increased during his last term, he still wants to continue to make progress by looking at every area and seeing what else can be improved.
“I want to make sure we streamline, and we check in on [programs] to make sure they are serving the purpose for which we have them,” he said. “I don’t believe in just funding something just for funding it. I want it to be something that it is contributing to the life of the kids.”
Livingston wants to champion AVID and NAF but also wants to advance new programs like the International Baccalaureate program.
“[The I.B. Program] is in its training phase, so we’re prepared to implement that at our Lee County High School,” she said.
But all three board members agreed that a new elementary school likely would have to be considered during the next four years.
Bowen hoped the board would at least get the new school approved by the end of her term. She also wants to facilitate better communication between the board, teachers and parents.
“Just being a mom with kids in school, I hope to be a pipeline from parents to the board of education and making sure that issues, concerns, praises, whatever — that those are communicated from parents back to the board,” she said.
November’s election marked Lee County’s first partisan board of education race. Akinosho and Livingston were elected as Democrats, and Bowen was elected as a Republican. But Akinosho said despite having a newly partisan board, he expects all the members to work well together because they might come in believing they will work for a political party — but they will end up working for the children of Lee County.
“Once they come on the board and they see what we are dealing with, our political differences will go out the window,” he said.