EDITORIAL: Dougherty County Commission group fails civics lesson

Remember when it was all about the kids?

Not these days. At least not with the Dougherty County Commission or, to be more exact, four commissioners who seem much more interested in photo ops and control than they are about improving students’ lives.

By not agreeing to go forward with the Georgia Civic Awareness Program for Students, or GCAPS, program Monday, Dougherty County public school students were placed at an unnecessary disadvantage. Already, should the program survive in the county — and there’s no indication that the commission majority will do that — they will miss Saturday’s orientation and likely not be able to attend the early October Youth Summit at Macon, where they would get to meet with their peers from around the state.

“This program should be a learning opportunity,” Dougherty County School Superintendent Butch Mosely said Tuesday. “But it appears that some on the commission want to hold our kids hostage. It’s the adults in this who should be setting the example.”

The sad fact is they are. Commissioners John Hayes, Clinton Johnson, Harry James and Anthony Jones are setting examples of bad government and political myopia. This is especially disappointing with Jones, whose experience with the Extension Service and 4-H ought to have impressed upon him the need to serve students ahead of politics.

The problems with GCAPS — with Hayes front-and-center on the controversies — necessitated a change in oversight of the program. Despite those controversies, the students benefited from GCAPS. Given the reports, however, school system officials, responsible for the well-being of their students, had concerns that needed to be addressed.

The decision to place school officials in coordinating roles of a county program, however, didn’t set well with the egos of the commissioners, who were unhappy with the school system controlling, in the words of James, “our” program.

And that is the basis for this inaction of poor government. GCAPS should be viewed as the students’ program, not as something that belongs to the County Commission. Pure and simple, these commissioners have placed their own interests and egos ahead of youths who are among the best and brightest in the school system. As future leaders of this and other communities, they are watching.

At heart, GCAPS teaches youths about civics and, while they didn’t intend to, the commission bloc that placed this program in jeopardy has given these young people a civics lesson: an example of failed leadership.