CARLTON FLETCHER: For some Lee County ‘leaders,’ ego trumps success

School’s out for summer. School’s out forever.

— Alice Cooper

Watch a little deeper than the surface the actions of certain individuals in Lee County, and you’ll have no problem figuring why the once-thriving county to the north of Albany is one of the few Republican enclaves in the region.

Pay attention as you see entrenched elected officials and some of their selected henchmen try to remake the county in their own image, and if you don’t see Trumpian action, you’re just not paying attention.

I refer to Lee County as “once-thriving,” because there is activity afoot to wrest control of the county’s greatest asset by individuals who just can’t stand the fact – a la Trump – that another entity in the community gets more than a lion’s share of credit for the county’s improbable resurgence that is well into its fourth decade.

The once-untouchable Lee County School System is now under fire from individuals – some of them elected, some of them self-appointed keepers of their own eerie faith – who don’t like the fact that the education system is the basis for Lee’s improbable growth.

Oh, everyone was fine with the school system when Mr. Rob — the incomparable Robert Clay — was running things. One of the county’s own, Clay – by force of his impressive will – led a metamorphosis in the school system that saw it slowly evolve from a “a bunch of good ole country school houses” into one of the finest systems in the state.

That was OK with the self-imposed saviors of the county, but it seems that the more the narrative became “Lee County’s growth is attributable to the school system” – and, thus, the more taxpayer money the system required – individuals with no ties to the system and too old to have been part of its renaissance started to blanch at the thought of someone else getting credit that everyone – or every right-thinking person – knew they deserved.

So a rift is developing among these “leaders” as they seek to subvert and diminish the impact of the ultra-successful school system and its leaders, a little “showing them who has the power around here.” 

And who suffers? The students who are in the system, of course.

You’d have a tough time finding people who’d say so out loud, but before things started turning around in Lee County, its school system was a mess. Its teachers were doing what they could with inadequate supplies, and curriculum matters were far behind other more advanced schools in the state.

But things started turning around when a little something called “white flight” became a driving force in the county. Whites living in Dougherty, Terrell, Sumter, Crisp and other surrounding counties started moving to what they saw as a “safer environment,” taking their students out of what were overcrowded and ever-diminishing public schools and, rather than enroll them in costly private schools, just moved into Lee County.

And these people who were making the move had grown accustomed to top-of-the-line services in the counties they were leaving behind, so they started demanding the same in their newer, whiter neighborhoods.

Infrastructure improvements were not only demanded by all these new citizens, they were required by state officials who basically said, “No one else moves into the county until you make upgrades” … on things like roads, waste treatment, water supplies, utilities.

Some, to this day, take credit for bringing the infrastructure upgrades to the county, but the fact is leaders had no choice. It was make improvements or halt the sudden momentum that caught the region and the state by surprise.

Even as those service upgrades were being made, new young educators with dynamic ideas about how to improve the school system started making their way into the county. And as the schools improved, the white flight that had initially spurred the county’s growth changed as well. It became more of a brain-drain, as parents were anxious to be a part of the improving school system with new facilities, new attitudes, and new ideas.

Now, it seems the leaders and self-imposed wags who “know what’s best for the county” – some of whom have no ties to Lee or to its school system but like the idea of taking the elite down a few pegs to feed their own enormous egos – are taking aim at school officials, trying to exert their will and prove to any who will listen that they’re the reason Lee County has enjoyed an economic boom, not these namby-pambies who sit behind desks all day.

These individuals may indeed get their way, may eventually succeed in putting school leaders in their place, and in doing so tear away at the fabric of the school system. One might ask them what they hope to get out of their efforts to exert control over the successful school officials, but that question is moot. Most of these people do not care about the county, its students or the success of the exceptional school system. They just want to make sure everyone understands that they’re the ones who deserve the credit.