Candidate McCormick Speaks Out

Dr. George R. McCormick – Candidate for Superintendent of Schools – Santa Rosa County, Florida – 2012

As a candidate for the position of Superintendent of Schools, I have had the pleasure of meeting thousands of local citizens who express their strong desire that we maintain the great instructional reputation of our school district, but who feel we need more conservative, frugal management of our school tax dollars. As a B.S. graduate of the Auburn University in Math, a Masters graduate of the University of Alabama in Math, and as a Doctoral graduate of Auburn University in School Management and Leadership, I have the statistical and management skills to properly oversee a total school budget of almost $250 million dollars. Having worked for two very fiscal conservatives, Gov. George Voinovich of Ohio and Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, I think we need to stop the liberal spending in our district for administrative costs and overhead.

I am the most experienced and mature candidate in this race and have taught and coached at the junior high and senior high level, served as a dean, and later was promoted to be president of three community colleges including ten years as President of Jefferson Davis College in Brewton before I retired. My community service skills were honed as a President of the United Way, Cancer Society, District Boy Scouts Council, and the WIC program. One of my highest honors was being recognized by the Governor of Alabama for leading the state community colleges for ten years in private and corporate fund raising for school facilities, golf courses, baseball fields, softball fields, cultural museum, and science equipment and computers. Using private dollars to purchase such items can assist in stretching public tax much further.

Since I retired, my family and I decided to move to Santa Rosa County in 1999 due to the outstanding schools. I have taught Pensacola State College dual enrollment math classes at Milton High for five years and Gulf Breeze High for six years. My wife Margaret has taught at Woodlawn, Holley Navarre, Gulf Breeze High, Pace High as a reading coach, and now serves as Dean of King Middle School.

With the hard work of parents, students, and teachers, Santa Rosa County has a record of academic achievement at the top of state. Our parents have strong work ethics and foster faith and patriotism in their children which results in high achieving students. I will not step in and interfere with school discipline issues related to school athletes regardless of the contest. Each student will be treated fairly.

However, recent decisions at the top level of our school district have caused great concern for both parents and employees of the system. We abandoned the normal two tier busing system utilized by Mr. Russell and Mr. Rogers for a new three tier system almost all participants in the system label a failure and a great inconvenience to students, parents, and grand parents who watch small children have to step onto a bus in the dark, ride for long periods of time before reaching school, and then are sent home before their older brothers and sisters are released to help with the care of the younger children.

The district gave three pay raises to administrators in about twelve months, a 1.8%, a 3%, and a large raise of $5000 to $11000 while teachers were being fired due to budget problems. Our system now has debt over $50 million dollars, and money was spent on new IPADS for administrators and computer tablets for maintenance workers while students were not allowed to use this new equipment. More county vehicles were purchased. If elected, I will not use a county vehicle. I will not accept a monthly district salary stipend for my personal cell phone bill.  I will not allow vendors and contractors to use school VISA cards or school accounts to avoid contractors having to pay mandated state sales tax as auditors cited our district. I will not spend any money on school prayer lawsuits and ask all students to celebrate their religious freedoms as granted by our constitution. I will require three bids on all school contracts and will not recommend change orders on construction contracts which generate more money to contractors after the low bid is received. I will lower the number of district administrators making more than $100,000 in half and will lower school central staff budgets by 10%. I will not recommend school property tax increases as recommended this year during the terrible recession our communities face, and I will attack the problem we have in our schools where once we had A-high schools, and now we have B-high schools in the county. These school grades will affect property values in our county.

I will attack the crisis resulting from over half of all the ninth grade algebra students in the district not passing algebra this year due to failing the state end of course exam, We cannot hold back half of our ninth graders each year, or they will get discouraged and maybe drop out. I will strongly support new fine arts, music, drama, track, and intramural sports in our middle schools to improve student interest in school and to keep our children off the streets and out of trouble.

Please consider my qualifications, experience, and past management experience in saving as much tax money as possible and putting it into the classroom. The school parent surveys last year revealed a very low rating of the financial management of the school district. I will improve the morale of teachers, bus drivers, maintenance personnel, and lunchroom workers. My office door will always be open to citizens and parents, and I will treat each parent equally.

I have not solicited any political donations from any school administrators or school vendor or contractors. I will not allow any school administrator or staff member to work on political activities during the school day or on school equipment. Thank you for your consideration and vote.