New governor-appointed Dublin school board takes office

The new members of the Dublin City Board of Education were sworn in Monday night, taking over the task of turning around the struggling school district after the suspension and removal of the former board last month.

The seven new members were appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to replace the suspended board members. Once each member was sworn to their oath of office by Superior Court Judge Jon Helton, the new board elected its new officers. David Westerfield was chosen as chairman, and Priscilla Adams was named vice chairwoman.

Westerfield said the board’s initial focus will be to ‘”take care of the students of the city of Dublin.”

“We want to keep an open mind and move forward, to get this system back to where it’s supposed to be,” Westerfield told The Courier Herald.

Westerfield is a former Mohawk human resources director and Communities in Schools board chairman. Adams is former director of Georgia Military College’s Dublin satellite campus

Other new board members are: 

• Teresa Holliday, program manager with Community Service Board of Middle Georgia

• D’Andrea King, retired Dublin City elementary school teacher

• Randy Frederick Green, an energy and sustainability consultant and retired manager for Georgia Tech’s Georgia Manufacturing Extension Partnership

• Angela Wright, banking officer and local bank branch manager 

• And Douglas Eaves, local business owner and longtime government consultant.

A crowd of several dozen applauded as each new member was sworn in, and again once all had taken their oaths. Monday’s regularly scheduled workshop then moved into a three-hour training session for the board members, who are required to get at least 15 hours of training.

A crowd of several dozen applauded as each new member was sworn in, and again once all had taken their oaths. Monday’s regularly scheduled workshop then moved into a three-hour training session for the board members, who must get at least 15 hours of required training.

Kemp suspended the Dublin board Aug. 17, at the unanimous recommendation of the state Board of Education, following a 10-hour suspension hearing, convened under state law after a yearlong financial crisis put the district’s accreditation in peril.

Dublin City faced a projected $13.4 million deficit after the state revealed last August that the district owed $6 million in past-due health plan payments. Suspension hearing testimony highlighted the district’s long history of financial struggles and how the board has repeatedly promised but failed to fix its long-running deficit. It also revealed how the district, with little to no oversight from the local board, nearly misspent and mismanaged its way into insolvency after an influx of more $19 million in federal COVID money led to over-hiring and overpaying staff.

State and federal criminal investigations into the district’s finances are ongoing.