CARY W. SELL: Albany High School alumni deserve explanation on school closing

To the Dougherty County Board of Education: As an Albany High School alumnus, valedictorian class of 1986, I would like to express disapproval of your decision to close Albany High School. Albany High School is the oldest high school in Albany. It carries the name and the legacy of the city itself.

In looking at the report card for the Dougherty County School System itself and the high schools in particular, I am led to think that there must be something in your decision-making that is not tied to the facts. Albany High School outperforms two other high schools. Is it that you simply want another high school to have the title of “oldest”?

Albany High School has been in continuous operation since 1886 and was the first high school in Dougherty County. The establishment that is Albany High School deserves respect and all efforts should be made to maintain that establishment. Albany High School has the second-highest graduation rate in Dougherty County and the battery of comparable sores (state Milestones tests, AP scores, Etc.) places it above Monroe and Dougherty.

I, along with many, many Albany High School alumni, would like to know what reasoning was used in order to make this decision. I have been working in education for 26 years and I will say that all of the high schools in Dougherty County need some serious work when it comes to achievement. As a graduate of Albany High School, I find the scores across the county very sad.

The bottom line is that the decision to close Albany High School in favor of keeping open schools that are far worse performing and that have less history than the first high school of Dougherty County, is wrong and unacceptable to the generations of Albany High School alumni. You, as members of the Board of Education, owe us an explanation. We also ask that you reconsider this in light of what are facts about the high schools of Dougherty County.

CARY W. SELL

Lawrenceville