MICHAEL FERGUSON II: Dougherty County School System in “Dyer” need of help

I’d like to begin by paying homage to my ancestors who, despite laws that forbade them from learning to read a new language, their intellectual curiosity they brought with them from their civilization compelled them to desire to communicate in this foreign tongue.

During segregation, our school houses produced scholars that continued to showcase our intellect and provided our emerging communities with lawyers, physicians, educators, scientists, authors, inventors, thespians, clergy, plumbers, electricians and pioneers on all fronts in a society that debated our intellect and humanity.

It breaks my heart to see our Dougherty County School System failing to provide the basic literacy skills that our forefathers achieved under much more dire circumstances.

This failure produces “real life” casualties that manifest in the form of a breakdown in our communities and the perpetuation of single-family households, the school-to-prison pipeline, and violence from the disenfranchised.

Our work force is limited, and the lives of those entrusted to our “educational system” has failed them and the community as a whole.

I am requesting that the stakeholders become more vocal and engaged on behalf of our children to hold the elected School Board officials and Superintendent Kenneth Dyer accountable for acceptable outcomes in the area of literacy.

Teaching our children to read is fundamental.

Fix it! In truth.