Local & State Headlines

Summer is over for DCSS faculty, staff

• Dougherty County teachers, transportation workers and lunch room staff, among others, prepare Wednesday for the 2008-09 school year.

Joshua Brown

ALBANY — It was his second-place finish in a third-grade spelling bee that drove Derrick C. Moore to exceptional accomplishments in his lifetime.

The word he couldn’t spell — “exceptional.”

“I have since said (that) since I couldn’t spell it, I’ll devote the rest of my life to becoming it,” he said.

Moore, a 40-year-old former NFL running back and author, was the speaker at the Dougherty County School System’s back-to-school meeting Wednesday morning. The Monroe Comprehensive High School graduate said he was proof that anyone with enough determination and support can do great things.

“I stand here as a witness to you that anyone can go from a zero to hero,” he told the school system’s employees during the event at the Albany Civic Center.

The former NFL star thanked several of his former teachers and coaches for pushing him while he was in school to achieve.

“I was never the most talented, never the smartest, never the most gifted,” he said. “I did not come from a well-to-do family — in fact my family was dysfunctional. But I stand here ... as a result of your investment and what the school system poured into me.”

During his address to the educators and support staff, Moore compared the school system to an orchestra and its students to instruments. Each member of the orchestra plays a vital role in drawing out beautiful notes from the instruments.

Because each student is different, DCSS employees must learn to cater to the needs of each child.

“The opportunity and responsibility we all have is to learn to play the instruments,” he said.

A skit performed by several DCSS employees provided a little comic relief during the meeting while still encouraging the educators and staff to continue their work of teaching the county’s children.

In the skit, several DCSS employees lined up to express complaints to the school system that often went unheeded, some of which included receiving too little pay, being overworked, and having too many meetings to attend.

“I thought you hired me to teach ... no more meetings!” one woman complained to the DCSS representative in the skit. A man sang to same woman, “I never seem to get caught up, so will you help me my darling?”

But the skit brought things home at the end by bringing the school system’s purpose into focus.

“Why are we working for the Dougherty County School System?” one of the acting troupe asked the crowd. “It’s not about us, it’s about the children! The greatest investment anybody can make is in the life of a child.”

School Superintendent Sally Whatley challenged the faculty and staff in her address to the body to be stepping stones for the system’s students.

“As we prepare (for the new school year), we must remember to keep the main thing the main thing, and that’s to provide quality education for our children,” she said. “How powerful that work could be if each of us focused on the purpose of being a stepping stone instead of a stumbling block.”

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