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Local prinicpal lauded by peers

• A Dougherty County principal is named president-elect of the state’s largest educator association.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — During her 17 years as an educator, Sheryl Holmes has developed a good reputation with her peers.

In June, the Lincoln Elementary Magnet School principal was voted president-elect of the 72,000-member Professional Association of Georgia Educators, the largest educators group in the state.

“I’m excited,” Holmes said in a recent interview, “because it will provide me an opportunity to address some of the issues that I feel are important in education and challenges that are facing us as educators.”

A PAGE member since 1992, Holmes was elected to the position during the organization’s June meeting.

As president-elect, she will shadow the organization’s president and learn what the duties of the job are, she said. She’ll also represent PAGE at various events and attend a September meeting in Washington, D.C., with Georgia’s congressmen to discuss the No Child Left Behind Act reauthorization.

Holmes will also work with PAGE’s legislative committee to draft priorities for the 2009 General Assembly.

Holmes said she would be able to address some of the Dougherty County School System’s issues through the lens of the entire state as president of the group because DCSS’s issues are many of the same ones other systems in Georgia face.

Those issues include schools making Adequate Yearly Progress and increasing graduation rates, she said. Recent concern over Criterion-Referenced Competency Testing results and whether the tests adequately reflected the curriculum is another issue she said she wanted to try to address through her influential position.

By taking on the issues across the state, Holmes said she would by default help to address them in Dougherty County.

“I feel the curriculum is adequate, but I feel we have got to get a grip with aligning the Georgia Performance Standards (curriculum) with CRCT testing,” she said. “I think the problems that are in Dougherty County are problems that are across the state. If there’s a change made, it will ultimately affect Dougherty County.”

After her year as president- elect, Holmes will go on to serve as president and then as past president, during which she will have a voice on the board of directors, said PAGE spokesman Tim Callahan.

“It’s an important responsibility that Sheryl will have, and we are delighted to have her as our president-elect,” he said. “It’s a year in which the president-elect learns every aspect of the organization and gets them ready for some activities and gets them ready as president.

“As president ... she will be the voice, if you will, for a whole lot of teachers in this state.”

There are about 125,000 educators in the state, Callahan said.

This isn’t the first time Holmes has been in the spotlight with PAGE. Her school was featured on the cover of the organization’s publication, PAGE One magazine, in November for an article on “what makes great schools.”

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