ATLANTA — When Tony Thaw was elected to Georgia’s Glynn County Board of Commissioners in 2003, he set out to solve a problem he says was preventing the county from realizing its full economic potential.
“We have a deep port. We have I-95 running right through the middle. We have a beautiful airport, and we have a great development authority,” Thaw says. “What we didn’t have in Glynn County was a workforce.”
Thaw decided that the way to produce a better workforce was through the schools. But there was a problem: the south Georgia county’s two high schools graduated only about half of their students. The school board was racked by in-fighting, had just fired its superintendent, and was at risk of losing its accreditation.
So Thaw decided to take matters into his own hands. He learned about a new charter “career academy” in Newnan, southwest of Atlanta, designed to blend secondary education with technical training. Thaw started bringing local business leaders to visit the school in Newnan. And when they returned, the business owners started writing checks to help pay for an academy of their own.
–Originally posted in Georgia Public Broadcasting News
Tue., December 6, 2011 6:03pm (EST)
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