Both candidates in the race for the District 7 seat on the Bulloch County Board of Education are graduates of Southeast Bulloch High School and have seen some of their children graduate from there. One of the candidates, Lisha Nevil, also spent a quarter century teaching at one of Southeast Bulloch’s feeder elementary schools.

She is challenging incumbent Heather Mims in this nonpartisan race in Tuesday’s election. Early voting concludes Friday, May 17, 8 a.m.-5 p.m., at the Elections and Registration Office in the County Annex, 113 N. Main St., Statesboro. Bulloch’s 16 Election Day voting precincts will be open 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday.

Nevil spent the last 26 years of her 30-year teacher career at Nevils Elementary School. She retired in 2018, and now 60, raises birds – peacocks, chickens, pheasants, turkeys and ducks – on her little farm in the Sinkhole area, between Register and Nevils. She got her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in early childhood education from Georgia Southern.

“My biggest focus is the children; it always has been the children, when I was teaching. I mean, that’s the most important thing, and that’s what we’re here for, and I just want to be sure that we are focusing on the children,” she said. “I do believe that we don’t necessarily spend resources the  way we  should, and I want  more  focus to go for the children.”

Nevil has three daughters, one of whom is still in school at Southeast Bulloch Middle. The older two graduated from Southeast Bulloch High. She also has two very young granddaughters, not yet in school.

“I want the schools to be equal,” Nevil said.  “I hear too many times about how people are having to move their children to different schools. I was actually talking with a friend this morning about that, and they have to move their children to a different school to find a school that’s more suited to their child. … I feel like you should be able to attend any school in Bulloch County and get the same education, have the same programs, the same benefits. … All of our schools should meet the needs of every child.”

She means that everything should be equal in terms of opportunity, and not that everything should be exactly the same, she indicated.

“I realize that different teachers have a more of a passion for things,” Nevil said, adding her opinion that Stilson Elementary has the best STEM program among the elementary schools, and that not every school would be able  to match it.

In just her last year at Nevils Elementary, she served as that school’s  STEM teacher, for exploratory science, technology, engineering  and math-related instruction, and became “a big proponent” of this teaching approach. But the school district allocates every school a certain amount of money for use at the discretion of principals and their school leadership teams, and the year after Nevil retired, she said, Nevils Elementary had no STEM program because the money was redirected into reading instruction.

“You have to assess the needs of your school, and I understand the importance of reading … but I don’t think they should have had to make a choice (between reading and STEM),” Nevil said.

‘Extravagant’ design

Nevil is not a fan of the plan for the new Southeast Bulloch High School as presently proposed. It would be the district’s largest school so far, designed for 2,500 students and expandable for up to 3,000. Architect’s concepts presented in March included a 6,000-seat arena-style gym, a 200-300-seat auxiliary gym, a 1,200-seat auditorium and a 200-300-seat lecture hall.

“I do not approve of a $138 million school, I believe it is,” Nevil said. “I just think that some of the things we do sometimes are extravagant, and we need to look at things more in s simplified manner, in other words build the school to educate the children. I’m also against very large schools.”

She said she realizes that many people are expected to move into the area and there is a need to accommodate more students.

 “But at the same time, if you get the schools too big, you’re not going to accommodate the students any more, they’re going to be lost,” Nevil said. “I want schools where the teachers know the students, the students know their teachers.”

She also commented on the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget that the superintendent and staff  recently presented to the board.

“We have a rather huge budget, and we may have the funds right now from COVID (pandemic recovery federal grants), but these funds are going to run  out, and once you continue to increase the budget $20 million, $30 million a year, at the point when those funds run out, that’s when the taxpayers are going to have to step in and pay for all of that….

“I just believe that we’ve got to learn how to live within a budget and not keep increasing the budget,” Nevils said.