Forsyth County Georgia Board of Education - Jere Krischel - 01/16/2024

Last month, Dr. Bearden shared his plans to retire this coming November. My family wasn't here for the first six years of his leadership of this school district, but we've certainly been grateful and impressed by the last four years of his tenure.

As a refugee from the People's Republic of California in 2020, I was eager to live in a free county, in a free state, and Forsyth was at the top of my list. The first year my children started at North Forsyth and Silver City Elementary, I paid close attention to the Forsyth County Schools website. Long before the woke CRT/DIE/SEL culture war was in full swing, I reached out to the district with concerns about their DIE programs, both for staff and students. As someone who watched California schools go woke and corrupt, I was determined to do what I could, to prevent that same tragedy in my new home.

And amazingly, I found hope. My concerns were listened to, both by Forsyth County staff, as well as my wonderful school board representative Darla Light. After bringing sunshine to the toxic nature of some of the materials put out by the organizations linked to on the DIE webpage, things started to change for the better.

I know that the words "diversity", "equity" and "inclusion" have a gravitas to them that has been weaponized to inject racism, sexism and inappropriate sexuality into our schools. But I found that despite tentative steps in the woke direction, our district was only doing so with the best of intentions. Once alerted to the dangers of this hateful ideology, hiding behind cunning language, decisive, and underappreciated action was taken by Dr. Bearden and the Board to halt programs that were not in line with the best interests of our children and our community, while still holding onto the spirit of compassion that motivated the first steps down the wrong path.

As the culture wars have ramped up, I've seen Dr. Bearden maintain a calm and collected composure, while being attacked by both left and right - and if any of my comments over the past three years have seemed like attacks, I sincerely apologize. I fully recognize that even though he might not make the same decisions that I would make, that Dr. Bearden is truly interested in doing the right thing for our district, its staff, and its families.

So, thank you Dr. Bearden, for being a leader who has had to endure attacks that were not fair, and not kind, for years. Thank you for being a leader who has gracefully threaded the needle between compassion and propriety. I appreciate you, my family appreciates you, and we will miss your leadership when you go off to bigger and better, and hopefully less stressful and contentious opportunities.

Filling your shoes will be difficult, but in closing, I would like to humbly ask the Board to consider prioritizing internal candidates rather than searching for an outsider to take the reins. I've had a long career in a large bureaucratic organization, and I've found that leaders that have worked themselves up the ranks regularly outperform newcomers. And even though I know that Mitch Young disagrees with me on a great number of things, he is a genuinely passionate and talented leader who has earned his stellar reputation. Our district would be lucky to have him move up the ladder.

And so on that note, thank you very much for your time, and again, I'd love to buy lunch for anyone who disagrees with me.