Alisha Thomas Searcy, Candidate for Georgia State School Superintendent

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Transcript

Meral Clarke: 0:18

Hello and welcome back to the North Georgia Blue Podcast produced and distributed by the Fannin County Democratic Party. I'm your host Meral Clarke and we're getting into some good trouble today with our special guest, Alisha Thomas Searcy. Running to be Georgia's next State School Superintendent. Welcome to the show.

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 0:38

Thank you, Meral. So pleased to be here.

Meral Clarke: 0:40

Let's let our listeners know a little bit about you. Alisha is a wife, mother, child advocate and entrepreneur. She has more than 20 years of experience as a policymaker having served six terms as a Cobb County State Representative, nonprofit and education leader, a product of public education. She is passionate about championing educators and students and empowering parents to be in the driver's seat of our children's educational experiences. She was the first African American elected to the Georgia House, but certainly not the last elected from Cobb County. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. All right. Terrific. Alisha is also a certified State School Superintendent and former school superintendent holding a bachelor's degree from Spelman and a master's degree in Educational Leadership from Kennesaw State University. Well, you are obviously more than qualified for the position of State School Superintendent. So let's dive right in. Please tell our listeners who may not know the role of State School Superintendent and why you decided to run and why now?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 1:54

Absolutely. Again, thank you for having me. I'm excited about this conversation and hoping that we'll get some good engagement and people really hearing my heart. I am Alisha Thomas Searcy, as I even hear my own bio, I think about the eight year break that I took from being in politics, because I don't like politics. Even though I spent 12 years as an elected official, I don't like it, it's divisive, it's ugly, especially now. And when it comes to education, I just want to help kids. And so the State School Superintendent is a constitutional office as a statewide position. And my job will be to run the Department of Education, and all of the departments things like the state standards, funding, you know, which schools get what funding, it's also about working with the state legislature, it's a policy job. So when the state legislature passes a law, and I had this experience when I was in the legislature, if it's related to education, the Department of Education and the State Board of Education is responsible for promulgating the rules that go along with those laws. So for example, I sponsored the law House Bill 251, in 2009, that allows students to transfer within their school district as long as there are a space. So when I passed that law, I worked directly with the superintendent at the time with the State Board of Education to set up those rules that then school districts had to follow. And so when you think about the State School Superintendent, it's again a policy job, and it's a leadership position that's running the Department of Education. They are required to provide support and guidance to school districts on a number of issues, ie CRT and those kinds of things. And I also think what's unwritten is a State School Superintendent should be the champion for students, for educators, and absolutely for parents. And as someone who of course, has a background in policy as a former superintendent, so I've run a school district before, and certainly a mom of three school aged children along with my retired state trooper husband, I am uniquely qualified and frankly, I believe, have the experiences and the preparation to match this moment.

Meral Clarke: 4:11

There is no doubt about your experience and background, making you very well qualified and it's going to be our pleasure to vote for you come November. So question. What do you mean when you say that you want to place parents in the driver's seat? We've seen so many parents disrupting school board meetings across the state in the country. So what do you mean by that?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 4:35

Not that not that fine. Frankly, I have been irritated. Think that may be a good word for me to use by what I think is the hijacking of what we mean by involving parents. Let's tell the truth. Parents have always had access to curriculum and state standards. We've always had the ability to review what's being taught in schools and share concerns that we if we had them. This political game that's being played is frustrating and unfortunate, because it's a distraction from what we really mean when we say parents ought to be engaged. Now, I do also believe that parent engagement means I should be able to choose the school that best meets the needs of my children. And my household, we have 3: 15, 8, and 4. Our four year old has been reading since he was three years old, he is the most brilliant kid I've ever experienced in my life, he also has some behavior issues, he's not going to thrive as he should in a traditional school environment. And so we're looking as parents for what's going to be the best place for him in kindergarten, our eight year old, also very, very smart, she's going to thrive in whatever environment she's in. Our 15 year old has an IEP, that's an individualized education plan. I've been advocating for her as a parent, since she was in third grade to make sure that she gets what she needs at her school. And so when I talk about parents being in the driver's seat, it's deciding where your child goes to school based on what best meets their needs, it's being able to advocate for them, if you've got a child with an IEP and understanding how to advocate for those accommodations, making sure that they are getting the things that you know they have a right to, it's also saying, let me find the right environment that meets the needs of my child, let me go into the schools and be involved so that i Yes, know what's happening, what's being taught. But I think parents and education have to be seen as equal partners. Sometimes we can be intimidated when we go into a school and educators are using all the edge of speed, you know, we have every acronym and the alphabet soup, as they say. So if you're not in education, that could be intimidating. And I want parents to be in the driver's seat to say I know my child better than anybody else. I know what Johnny needs. I know what Melissa needs. And so therefore, I should be the decider on where they go to school, you know, what they're learning what they're being exposed to, again, not in the way that we've seen in the last few months, but in a way that says, I want them to have a curriculum that is a reflection of who they are. Over 50% of the students who attend public schools in Georgia, are students of color. And so our curriculum ought to be a reflection of that, we got to celebrate the diversity of who we are, as a state, not get bogged down in these very political divisive conversations that, frankly, are disempowering educators

Meral Clarke: 7:28

Agreed. And I imagine that quite a few parents don't even know that they have these options for their children. Do you believe that to be so?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 7:37

I do. I think some know, what's interesting is that, you know, when you get into the conversation about education and choice, which can be controversial to some people, but the average parent, they don't care what the school is called, they just want a good school for their kids. And so I find that parents may not know what how the school is structured, or how its funded or what it's called, but they sure will find the options that work best for them. And so whether it's the school across the street, or the one that's closest to their job, or the one that you know, is in their mom's neighborhood, or whatever, they want the school that best meets the needs of their children and their families.

Meral Clarke: 8:14

Exactly. And speaking of parents disrupting school board meetings over such a thing as critical race theory, which isn't even taught in our schools, I mean, not K through 12. That's a postgraduate level course. So that's something I think most of these parents don't understand, either. Certainly, the Republican superintendent and the Republican leadership tends to stir up these distractions for us. Yeah.

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 8:42

And unfortunately, our current superintendent supports this, quote, CRT ban, and banning books, and all of this other all these other distractions. And so it's unfortunate that as an educator, you would think he would know better than anybody else, that it's not okay to restrict and restrain the ability for teachers to teach. And that's why we need a new State School Superintendent.

Meral Clarke: 9:05

I completely agree with that. So let's chat about school safety. And I'm going to bring up the Cobb school system. The Cobb school system is the second largest school system in the state, correct? Yes. So it really matters what they're doing in Cobb County and how it affects other school districts across the state. So let's talk about school safety. Cobb school board is now allowing guns to be carried with minimal training by school personnel, not teachers. That's my understanding, but other school personnel who have guns that they may or may not know how to operate properly around our kids. So how do you plan to ensure the safety of Georgia School teachers and children?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 9:48

So let me say this first and foremost, my background is important to me. And I think voters should know what my background is to know why I come to this issue the way that I do. So first of all, I'm married to a retired state trooper who gave 26 years of his life to the State of Georgia. Secondly, I'm a parent, right? We are parents of three school aged children. And so on May 24, which was the day of the primary, I had this amazing win, we won 159 counties, it should have been the happiest one of the happiest days of my life. But it wasn't, it was extremely difficult to know that just a few states away there are parents like me, right? Just the average parents sending their kids to school, who will never get to see their babies again, because of senseless violence, and laws that don't make sense. And so on May 25, when it's time for my daughter and my 15 year old to go to school, I said, you know, Lila, why don't you just stay home today, it's the last day, don't worry about it. Because I was afraid that something might happen that some kid might get that idea and want to do the same thing. And so Leila said, Well, you know, I've got a test, and I'm gonna go with okay. So I let her go until she comes back. My husband, I was sitting at the kitchen table, and I said, you know, how's the day? How, what are kids saying? She said, Well, of course everybody's talking about it. It's all over tick tock. She said, but we know nobody's going to do anything. And it was like a gut punch, right? Because these are children who don't believe that anybody is going to do anything to protect them. So she went on to talk about that. And I had no idea that she and her friends, you know, have this plan that they put their hardest books in the front of their book bags, to protect them in case of a school shooting.

Meral Clarke: 11:36

Oh, my goodness, the trauma. Yes. I cannot imagine to these kids

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 11:40

and the practicing of the drills and all of that. And so, a few things that I did immediately, we started doing these school safety roundtables across the state. Now I'm just a candidate. I'm not a State School Superintendent yet, but I am the kind of person, I'm the kind of leader that I have to do something, I needed to do something number one to demonstrate to my own child, that she can count on this adult to do something, but also so that we had the right solutions. So there are a couple of things that I've done in addition to these roundtables. Last week, I actually went to Cobb County sat in on the hearing about this, what I think is a very underdeveloped policy that lacks any kind of thoroughness, and they didn't even contact law enforcement agencies, the Cobb Police Department nor the sheriff's department were involved in these conversations at all. So I go, I speak, you know, as a parent to the school board and talk about my frustration, and my real concern about this wrongheaded policy. And so now, it's still passed parents were yelling and all of that stuff. And we've all seen it on the news. But what I know for sure, is that arming people who are not law enforcement, trained officers who didn't go through that, I forget the number now. It's I think it's 408 hours of post training, have no business having guns in schools, period. Okay, so that's my first answer. I want to make very, very clear To your question, What can I do a State School Superintendent, we need to use some of these things that we learned in our roundtables. The last one we have was in Cobb, the chief of police, was there a number of other people, we need to talk about prevention? Right? We need to talk about mental health in our schools, we need to ask our kids, how are you doing? How are you feeling? What do you need? And it sounds almost overly simplistic, but we're so busy schooling and doing, we're not checking in on people to see how they're feeling mental health services for our young people, mental health services for our educators? Yes, we are going to have to think about school resource officers at every single school. You know, there are some districts in our state, we learned this when we were in Muskogee County, they only have school resource officers at the middle and high schools. Well, Uvalde was at an elementary school. So it's mental health, it's prevention, it's making sure that the right people are armed and ready to go. And that we have the right this is the last thing that I'll say on this, that we have the right drills in place as well. One of the things that one of our local school board members in Cobb County pointed out, like the same kids who are going through these drills are the same kids that we have to be concerned about, right, because they are the students in the school. And when you look at who's been doing these shootings, you know, it's usually a younger person. And so being thoughtful about from a security standpoint, how do we make sure that yes, it's the same students who may know the drills, there are also some higher level pieces of security put in place, you know, in terms of locking doors, and I know that sounds very simple, but there are school districts in our state where teachers can't lock their doors from the inside. Those kinds of security measures where we are ensuring that all adults are well informed that they know what to do and that again, children are protected. So there's a lot that I said there but at the end of the day We've got to work on the prevention side, I have no doubt that law enforcement agencies in Georgia will be ready to go if there's something you know that happened. But what do we do to prevent these things? And that starting with mental health, it's counselors at every school, it's also school resource officers at every school.

Meral Clarke: 15:16

Yes, that would be wonderful. And I'm actually surprised that we don't already have that in place. But I guess I shouldn't be since Republicans have been running the office for so long. So tell us how your six terms as a, that's 12 years, as a Georgia State Representative prepared you for this role alongside your experience as a former school superintendent for Ivy prep academies. Tell me about that.

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 15:42

So I think earlier you asked me, why did I decide to run? When I think about the issues facing education in Georgia school safety we just talked about, I don't have to elaborate that anymore. But one of the real main reasons why I got in this race is I look at the morale of teachers across the State of Georgia. They're leaving the profession in droves. They feel largely disrespected, unheard. And I don't think anybody has given them a real voice. And not just over the last two years, I would argue it's probably been eight to 10 years, that teachers really have not had a voice, and certainly not a champion in the Department of Education, advocating for the things that they need. And so when I was school superintendent, I ran a network of all girls schools in the metro area, our teacher retention rate was 25%. When I got there, after three years, we got that up to 75%. across all of our schools. When I think about the learning loss that students have experienced, there's a significant gap between students of color, low income students, our rural students, because they didn't have access to broadband. There are a number of issues that have been compounded now that are contributing to learning loss. When I got to Ivy prep schools, our elementary school had a 43 cc RPI score, that's the state score that all of our schools are measured by college and career ready performance index. 43 was the score. After two years, we got that up to an 85. And so I know what it means to turn schools around, I know what it means to close gaps for children regardless of their zip code. And so I have those experiences as a local superintendent, who's done the work. I've hired principals, I've retained teachers, I know what it takes to make sure teachers have the resources they need to be successful in the classroom, we made sure that they felt valued and respected. So that's the kind of experience as a superintendent that is needed in this moment, when we talk about my experience as a state legislator spent 12 years on the House Education Committee and was involved in passing or stopping some of the most significant education legislation in this state. So whether it's the teacher and leader evaluation law, which I hope to co sponsor, the state's constitutional amendment that created the charter amendment, there are a number of other things that we worked on the fact that all districts had to choose, if there were going to be a charter district or i squared or stay status quo. All of those things were while I was in the legislature, those relationships, those experiences are absolutely critical. I also served on the House Appropriations Committee, I don't need to tell you or any of your listeners, that the QB formula that we created in the 1980s. Not I wasn't there then is outdated. And so in 2022, and this is what excites me more than anything else. We need to reimagine public education. We've got to reimagine how we fund it, how we attract and retain teachers, how we close those learning gaps. And frankly, we have to stop trying to deliver what I call this telegram education to a tick tock generation. So I'm running because I'm uniquely qualified. There's never been if you could believe this, in recent history, a state school superintendent who was a state legislator before, and it's a policy job. So of course, we've not had good policy. Of course, we've not had the right level of support for school districts, because we haven't had a person in the job who understands the connection between the state legislature and the Department of Education. Believe it or not, we've not had a State School Superintendent, who was a local superintendent prior to being the State School Superintendent. So think about the experiences that are necessary to be able to give districts guidance, if you've never been in that role before. So that's why I'm running. We've got to address these issues. And we have to have a state school superintendent who actually has the experiences and the preparation to get this job done for our kids.

Meral Clarke: 19:37

I am shocked to hear that none of the state school superintendents actually had experience in that arena, and also making policy because you're right. It's politics versus policy. And this is policy, not politics. So it's so important that we have that experience and I'm so glad that you do Alisha, thank you for running. You also mentioned teacher burnout, I have several friends who are teachers who are extremely burned out. One was a special ed teacher in the Gwinnett County School System. She recently put her resignation in because she doesn't have the resources. She doesn't have the funding. And she's frustrated with her school district for not giving her what she needs to teach her autistic kids properly. So what is the teacher? You've mentioned this, what is the teacher burnout report? Can you elaborate on that, and what you will do specifically as state superintendent to mitigate that burnout, which is quite prolific these days?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 20:42

Frankly, if we're honest, and if you were to talk to your friend, she will tell you, this burnout didn't get created because of COVID. As much as we would like to blame COVID for everything, that's just not the case. Teachers have been experiencing this for years. And so this burnout report was produced by the Department of Education, the current State School Superintendent, in conjunction with the State Teacher of the Year, I'll say thank you, Mr. Superintendent for doing this report. But the truth is, if you've been in office for eight years, something should have been done before now. And not only that, he he just did the report, there are no action items that he has taken. And there have been some suggestions within the report, but no action items that he has taken to address any of these issues, with the exception of high stakes testing. And so how do we address some of these things. And so when teachers talk about burnout, they're talking about things like yes, the pressure from high stakes testing, the pressure of not feeling respected or valued in the classroom, feeling overwhelmed with paperwork, not as you talked about your friend not having the resources they need to really provide services for students who have special needs. And I talked about that, you know, both as a mom who has a child with special needs, knowing what it takes in order to meet her needs and have the services that are necessary for her, they also talk about, of course, teacher pay, you know, we have some of the lowest teacher pay in the country may be a little bit higher in the southern region, but as a whole, it's very, very low. And so we've got to do something about the fact that there are teachers in the state who are working two jobs to make ends meet. And as hard as teachers work that is unacceptable. And so teacher pay is one of the first things that I want to focus on. I have a number, but we're working on kind of the research to figure out how we pay for it. We know that leader Abrams, I believe is talking about 50 to 55. And I think that's a great start. But we also have to restore and respect, restore our respect for teaching and education as a whole. And so this sounds a little bit crazy. But I think we ought to have a whole marketing campaign across the state, celebrating and honoring teachers, because we want teachers to stay in the profession. We want teachers to be attracted to the profession, but they're not going to do that. If we're always telling them, well, you're just a teacher, or you're not, you know, we're not going to pay you more than this, because that's all you're worth. So we've got to think about the pay, we got to think about how we're treating them, you know, what kinds of things are we doing, I'd like to see things like mental health days. And so teachers need mental health days where they can say, Today, I am not coming in because I need a mental health day. And we provide the resources at the state level so that they can have those substitutes. The last thing that I mentioned, you talked about special education, it's near and dear to my heart as a parent, but also, as a superintendent, I've been across that table, looking at a parent knowing that what this IEP says we didn't have the resources in our school to do that. And so we've got to fix that from the federal, state and local levels. And that's also a teacher burnout issue. We load them up with paperwork, and all of these things and accountability systems that they have to follow when all they want to do is serve our students. So those are some of the things that I know we can do as the teacher pay. It's restoring that respect in that value. One of the things that we did when I was at Ivy prep, we had a big celebration every year where it was called teacher Signing Day. And so the teachers who were returning as well as the new teachers would have this big celebration. So imagine one of our ones we were at college campus, we had the marching band and balloons and you know, celebrities and all the things that we could do to make them feel celebrated and loved. Final thing is we had when I was superintendent IV prep, we gave each of our teachers a $500 stipend that they could spend on professional development. So when you value people, you develop them, you invest in them. And so we did a number of things to make sure that they felt valued and invested in all along the way. And those are some of the things that we have to do when I plan to do when I become State School Superintendent.

Meral Clarke: 24:57

That's wonderful. And of course I imagined it will take the state legislature to enable all of these things correct?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 25:05

Yes, certainly when it comes to teacher pay, that's going to require the Appropriations Committee, which I served on for many years, it's going to require the state legislature to do that. And it's going to take some bipartisanship. I'm not afraid of that word. I was a Democrat and a Republican controlled legislature. And I was still able to stick with my values and get things done. And so it's working with them to guess work on the teacher pay and anything budget related. But some of these other things don't require the law. It just requires partnerships, and giving guidance and resources to school districts. Many of these districts have millions of dollars that they received from Cares Act and SR funds, these are the federal funds given because of COVID. And do you know that nationally, only 7% of these funds have actually been spent? That's terrible. Why is that? Well, I think it's because they're afraid to spend the dollars because they know that eventually it's going to go away. And so they don't want to create new positions or things that are not sustainable. But there are other things that you can do. And so some of them have done teacher bonuses. And you know, that's nice. But there are other things that can be done, you know, whether it's investing in mental health resources, or continued development for teachers, using some of those funds, of course, to keep the school safe from COVID, but also in terms of physical safety. So that's the role of a strong State School Superintendent, who doesn't just say, here's all the money, be flexible, do whatever you want, but says I'm going to provide some leadership, I'm going to bring districts together to share best practices, I'm going to create a clearinghouse in my office, so that you can access these resources and information so that you know what the best practices are, I'm going to give you guidance on how to do these things effectively. That's what real leadership is.

Meral Clarke: 26:53

That sounds amazing. I would love to see that happen. You've also stated that you intend to reimagine education, those are your words, reimagine education as superintendent, what does that mean? And how will you accomplish that goal.

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 27:09

And I mentioned it a few minutes ago that if you were to Google a picture of what school look like in the 1700s, in way too many of our classrooms in Georgia, it looks exactly the same in 2022. And so we have students sitting in 90 minute courses daily, but they can learn something on TikTok in 90 seconds. And so we have to rethink how we are delivering this education system, I used to be guilty of believing that if you didn't go to college, you weren't going to have a good future. And so I believe that everybody ought to have the same type of education. And from an equity standpoint, I still believe that. But I also understand now and I'm proud to have the support of some of our labor unions in the painters union in particular, we've been talking a lot about creating pre apprenticeships in our schools. So the students in their junior and senior year of high school can begin to earn and learn so that by the time they graduate from high school, they're going into a 50 $60,000 job where they can actually take care of themselves. It's those kinds of things. It's I was talking to a friend the other day, and we were talking about how teachers are, you know, frustrated, again, with all the paperwork and don't necessarily love grading papers. So what if we had an app where students could do more of their work on their phones? Like I don't, it's amazing to me, if you have kids at all of any age, whether they're six months old, or 16, they stay on their phones as adults, we stay on our phones, but the policy in schools that you can't bring your phone to school. So who is it that we're trying to teach? Who are we trying to educate here, adults can't stay off our phone for 30 seconds. But we expect students to do that all day long. And so why not deliver an education that's relevant and based on the world that we live in now. So it's the use of technology, it's making sure that our rural districts have access to broadband? Why are we still having that conversation in 2022 It's how we deliver this education. It's the kind of teachers that we are attracting, it's what is education look like? I think sometimes our kids are asking valuable questions like when am I ever going to use trigonometry? And so I'm not saying don't teach trigonometry, I'm saying, can we rethink the standards? And what we want students to know? Are we trying to create robots? Are we trying to create critical thinkers who are world citizens? And so if we're trying to do the latter, let's make sure our education system is a reflection of that. So that's what I mean by reimagining public education. And what I'm envisioning is stakeholders from all across the State of Georgia coming together to redesign what is high school look like in Georgia? What is elementary school? What does middle school look like? And having a number of types of schools that parents have options based on what's best for their children? I think if we reimagine public education nation, we can really lead the nation in what's possible for our students.

Meral Clarke: 30:04

Where's Georgia ranked? When it comes to education?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 30:08

Great question. And it really depends on what you're measuring. When you talk about reading scores, you know, in the past, I would say pre COVID, we were doing better, we were probably, you know, in the 20s, or 30s. When it came to math, we were in, you know, 20s and 30s is not good. But it's better than where we've been previously. In math, it's lower than that in science is lower than that. If you disaggregate some of our data, some of our lower income students across racial lines are not performing where they need to be. And so depending on the measure, I would say to you that Georgia is not leading the nation when it comes to reading and math, Massachusetts and states like that, Mississippi, actually is because they instituted a new reading program, and I know the State Superintendent there and spent some time with our they instituted a new reading program, and they've been leading the nation in terms of growth, when it comes to reading scores for their K through third graders.

Meral Clarke: 31:08

And that's surprising. It is

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 31:10

right. And that's why I started Mississippi, but guess what, it's about leadership. Right? It's about, and I don't know if she's Democrat or Republican, but it's a woman. And that means something to for the record. You know, it was looking at the research, putting in the resources, empowering teachers, giving them the tools that they need, you know, getting parents engaged is all the things that we know, work in education, she did it and had the resources to do so. And now they're seeing their scores skyrocket. And so those are the kinds of practices that we need to implement in Georgia, because I don't know about you, but I'm tired of being at the bottom,

Meral Clarke: 31:47

I agree on so many levels, don't even get me started on maternal mortality, and how it affects particularly women of color,

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 31:56

I think we're what 48 or 49,

Meral Clarke: 31:58

it's terrible. And, you know, there's just so many things that need to change. And of course, if we don't vote up and down the ballot, all the way down the ballot, these things will never change. Finally, I wanted to ask you about standardized testing. And this is an issue that's near and dear to my heart, because I was, you know, good student, but I struggled with standardized testing when I was in school. And of course, back when I was in school, there was nothing there was no resource or anywhere I could go to get help with that. So what are your thoughts on that?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 32:34

So I hate high stakes testing. I am I look at this from a parent's perspective, my 15 year old has come home every single year, since third grade, stressed out about testing. Every single year, without a doubt in March, she comes home in tears, you know, I'm doing my homework, I'm trying as hard as I can, I'm getting ready for the test, my teacher says if I don't pass, I'm not going to the next grade. And so frankly, for the last two years, I have opted her out of the state tests. And I did that because I did not want her to believe that this test would define who she is or what she knows. It certainly doesn't tell me who she is and what she knows. And so I believe that as a state, of course, we have to follow the federal law, which requires us to have some level of tests, but it does not require a high stakes test. And so what I'm noticing is that there are districts across the state, Marietta and Fulton or two of them that have implemented what's called MAP testing. So it's still a standardized test. But it's not a high stakes test. And when I was at Ivy prep, we actually use the same thing. And so instead of this one time, during the year, end of the year, everybody's pressured and teaching to the test. And I teach it what we want kids to know, we're benchmarking across the year. So in August, you're going to get a test, it's, again, not high stakes, you're going to have it again in December or January, we'll have a one more time at the end of the year. So now I get to chart the growth of my student. Now I can see that my 15 year old who was in the US are rising 10th grader and reads on a 12th grade level, I'm able to see those things over the course of the year, rather than just that one moment in that test. And to your point, she's not a great test taker, her disability does not allow her to be able to sit, you know, for that long and really concentrate long enough to do that. And so here's what I'll finally say about assessing. I think assessments are important because we need to know where our students are. Right? When we go to the doctor. We don't just sit in front of the doctor and he or she says, Well, this, these are the things that we need to fix. They got to do some assessments. But the problem that I have with our high stakes testing in Georgia is once we do the assessment at the end of the year, it's the end of the year, and then they go on to the next grade. Nobody's talking to the student about what the areas of growth are what they need to do you know to Get to the next level. And nobody's talking to the teachers either based on those test scores in case they need additional support. And so let's assess because we want students to get better, because we want teachers to get better. Let's assess, because we want to know overall, where classes are performing, where schools and districts are performing. That's good information to have. But we need to use the right assessments. And when we get the information, do the right thing with that information so that everybody can improve.

Meral Clarke: 35:29

That sounds ideal. And I can certainly relate to your 15 year old so it would be lovely if we could do some work in that arena. Well, Alisha, you are so qualified. We're so lucky to have you on the ballot. And I personally cannot wait to vote for you. Come November. So if someone wants to volunteer, donate, get involved with your campaign, where would you send them?

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 35:54

Listen, I need all of that. Okay, I need you to vote in October, November, I need donations, we gotta raise a whole bunch of money for this race. And we need volunteers, we're not going to reach our 2 million plus voters by ourselves. And so you can go to our website, Searcy for superintendent.com Searcy, spelled s e a r c y. So Searcy for superintendent.com. Sign up to volunteer sign up to loan us your venue so that we can have meetings there or fundraisers and of course, donate. And I think what's also important is word of mouth. If you've sat through this entire interview, listening to me go on and on about all things education, which I could do all day, tell other people, these are such important issues. And I believe that we want all 159 counties in the primary because people got excited. They felt hopeful. They started believing that we can actually see change in our schools. But if you don't tell people, they won't know that I'm on the ballot. And as you said Meral people have got to vote all the way down. Like we love Stacey, we love. I was about to say Reverend Warnock, but Senator Warnock. We love all these awesome people. But I need you to come on down all the way down to thirsty for superintendent, because there are 1.8 million children and three of them live in our house, who deserve to have a state school superintendent who's going to fight for them. Also, I want to mention on social media, you can find us on Facebook, Searcy, for state superintendent, on Instagram Searcy, the number four superintendent, and we're also on Tik Tok. So check us out, follow us, email me, I would love to hear from you get involved, because we can make history again in November.

Meral Clarke: 37:46

Great advice. And I would urge all of our listeners to do that. And finally, I ask all my guests this question. And they tell me it's the hardest question to answer. Tell us a fun fact about yourself something not necessarily related to your background, as a politician or as an educator, something fun and interesting just about Alisha.

Alisha Thomas Searcy: 38:07

So my background from middle school all the way through undergrad is in musical theater. Yes, so I sing, dance and act. And prior to running for State School Superintendent, I was dancing with a moms group called Lady Diamonds. And this year, we were all set to compete. And in fact, they just won the national championship a couple of weeks ago, but I was a little bit busy. So I couldn't use them. I had a few things on my schedule. But that's something that I think is fun and interesting that I love to perform. I love dancing, I love the arts, and even at you know 40 Plus, I was still getting out there on that stage and performing and I love it. Good for you.

Meral Clarke: 38:57

That's great. I love it. Well thank you Alisha for joining us today and sharing more about your critical work and candidacy to support democratic ideals and policy. I'm Meral Clarke and on behalf of our team, I'd like to thank everyone for listening to the North Georgia Blue Podcast. To learn more about us and the work that we're doing. Visit us online at Fannin County, Georgia democrats.com. Share the North Georgia Blue Podcast with your friends and family be sure to subscribe and follow and if you enjoy our podcasts be a founding patron and friend of the show at North Georgia blue podcast.com/patron with three different giving levels to choose from offering cool swag recognition on the show and website and valuable gift cards to help us continue getting into more good trouble.