James Bostic Jr. and Brad Bryant should adopt a cool nickname, like the Dynamic Duo or the A-Team.
With their appointment this past week to swoop into Warren County to help rescue the school system's accreditation from the county's school board, the two are taking on the second such task at the behest of Gov. Sonny Perdue.
Perdue previously picked the pair in 2008 to serve as "special liaisons" to help Clayton County schools restore their accreditation when that system's school board tried to run them in the ditch. They managed to straighten things out and get the system re-accredited.
Maybe those two members of the state board of education will be able to get through to the members of the Warren County Board of Education whose misdeeds caused the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to threaten to revoke that system's accreditation.
Meanwhile, there's a possible complication: Carole Jean Carey, the former Columbia County administrator who is now Warren County superintendent, says she is eligible to retire April 1.
When I first heard this news I hoped it was an April fool's joke. Sadly, it turned out to be true. Carey says all the paperwork is ready, and that she's just "waiting to see how things develop here.
"If I see some light at the end of the tunnel, I will stay longer," she says.
Please, Dynamic Duo: Give Carey a reason to stay. Her departure now would end the amazing 10-year tenure she's had in the Warren system on a down note.
Worse, it could perpetuate one of the system's major problems: The current school board likely would apply a racial litmus test for a successor, making it clear that no white candidates need apply.
If that happened, not even Sonny's A-Team could rescue Warren from themselves.
Not while driving
Speaking of signs, there are several billboards around town in which Doctors Hospital provides a number where a text message can be sent to find the current wait times in their emergency room.
I'm absolutely certain they don't intend for drivers seeing these billboards to send that text message and thereby increase the possibility they'll be visiting the ER because of texting while driving.
Hang up and drive, please.
(Barry L. Paschal is publisher of The Columbia County News-Times. E-mail barry.paschal@newstimesonline.com, or call 706-863-6165, extension 106. Follow at twitter.com/barrypaschal.)
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