Shalah Hendrix, mother of two children now enrolled and one who has graduated from the Bulloch County Schools, previously worked as a classroom paraprofessional. She has now announced her candidacy for the District 1 seat on the Board of Education.
A three-candidate race appears to be in the works in District 1. The incumbent board member, Cheri Wagner, said last month she intends to seek re-election. Besides Hendrix, another candidate, H. Lee Jones, has made his intention to run known on social media, and has been contacted for an interview.
“As a lifelong resident of Bulloch County, I am keenly aware that our community places much emphasis in a strong educational foundation for our children,” Hendrix said in an emailed statement. “This is why I am excited at the opportunity to serve on our school board.”
As with other local offices, qualifying week, March 7-11, will determine the official candidates. School board seats are nonpartisan and will be decided in the May 24 election or a July 26 runoff.
Parent committee
Hendrix serves on the school system’s District Parent Advisory Committee as a representative of Portal Middle High School and Portal Elementary School. Different from the 15 separate school councils, this is a county-wide committee established under the federal Title I program.
“I … feel that it is time for me to give back and support our future,” Hendrix said. “All three of our children have received a quality education from the Bulloch County school system, and I am seeing firsthand the positive results of hard work and dedication on behalf of our educators as well as students.”
However, she hears from various individuals, from parents on the Portal end of the county to school bus drivers, who feel they have little voice on the board, Hendrix said in a phone interview.
Both Hendrix, who is 41, and her husband Tommy were born in Bulloch County and grew up here. They have been married 23 years and also have one granddaughter. Their older daughter graduated from Portal Middle High in 2015. Their son is an eighth-grader there now, while their younger daughter is a fifth-grader at Portal Elementary.
Hendrix works as a computer technician at East Georgia Regional Medical Center, and said she has 20 years of experience in the technology field. She attended Georgia Southern University for two years, with middle grades education as her major. She did not complete the four-year degree, but tested for and received paraprofessional certification, and worked as a parapro from 2006 until 2010 in special education at both of the Portal schools.
She and her family attend Trinity Baptist Church at Nevils, where she is a member of the church choir and teaches fourth-grade Sunday school.
Chose Portal schools
The Hendrixes live near a dividing line between the Portal and Statesboro school attendance zones. As her observations point out, the lines for the eight Board of Education districts do not follow those of the three high school attendance zones or their feeder school areas. BOE District 1 extends from an area to the southwest of central Statesboro up through Portal and to the northern and western borders of the county.
“My children are in school at Portal, and when I talk to parents, I hear this a lot, ‘Well, they’d have better opportunities if they went into Statesboro to school,’” Hendrix said.
But the Hendrixes’ home is actually in the edge of the Statesboro attendance zone, she said, and they chose for their children to go to the Portal schools instead.
“It’s a smaller school atmosphere, a smaller group, and I just feel like the children in District 1, the majority of them go to school in the Portal (attendance zone), and every parent I talk to feels they don’t have a voice on the board, they don’t have someone who’s totally involved,” Hendrix said.
Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9458.