By Thomas Smith
Staff Reporter
tsmith@elkintribune.com

After a year of big changes for Yadkin County schools, a main question that could be posed to this year's Board of Education candidates is, "What's next?"

Five candiates are seeking three open seats in the May 6 election.

All of the candidates said they support the new middle schools, and all of them have been involved in education administration or policy making at some level.

The three incumbents are former Boonville Police Chief Rex (Buck) Baity, Dr. Hazel Nixon Brown and East Bend native Brock Matthews. All said they are pleased with the progress in the past years and hoped to be able to see through the changes and improvements they helped bring about.

Rex Baity, who retired as Boonville's chief of police in January, and is seeking his third term on the board, said he did not want to "leave a job undone."

"Well I've been on the school board for the last eight years and during those eight years, we have made a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go," he said.

"The building of these two middle schools will go a long way to improve the quality of education in Yadkin County. But we need to make the schools as even as possible. We teach some things at one school that they won't have at the other one because of space or because we just don't enough students and we need to try to even that out."

Baity said he wants to work on the county's curriculum and cited Yadkin Early College as another area which could be expanded and improved upon.

"Everyday is a learning experience," he said. "There are a lot of things we don't have control over that I would like to do differently but we can't because we have to go by state guidleines. I look forward, that if they want me in, to continue to give the citizens of Yadkin County what they need and deserve in education."

Dr. Hazel Nixon Brown, also seeking her third term, said, "We have two major issues in the school syste. One is space and one is the quality of the education in K-12. With the two new high school buidlings and the middle schools in the works, that should take care of our space problems for at lest 10 years. With our new superintendent, Dr. Benfield, we will be working dilligently to put in a sound comprehensive education for K-12. Of course the middle schools will help that, but we have to have them better prepared when they get there."

Brown said the middle schools will allow students opportunities they would not have received without them. She said work and evaluation on new curriculum will be very important in the upcoming years. She said she is looking forward to working with superintendent Dr. Jim Benefield in broadening and deepening the educational opportunities for Yadkin County children.

Brown, who has taught in the nursing program at UNC-Greensboro for 37 years, said she wants to offer what she feels like she can to help Yadkin County.

"I think education and my background in education is what I have to offer Yadkin County and I would like another 4 years to work with the superintendent, staff and teachers to bring that all to fruition."

At 30 years old, Brock Matthews of Yadkinville is the youngest member of the Yadkin County Board of Education. This year he will be seeking his second term, and like his fellow incumbents, Matthews hopes to see through what he thinks has been a time of progress for Yadkin County schools.

"Being a product of the Yadkin County school system, I realized that when I went to college there were certain elements lacking in my educational experience," he said. "I really wanted to use the skills I had learned in college to help the Yadkin County Students of today to prepare them to compete in the global economy and have the proper education to help them enter the workforce."

Matthews said he thinks a focus should be put on boosting opportunities for pre-K education to help children in the learning process even before they reach kindergarten. He said he feels the board has to make sure they get the best quality education they can provide for students at this time.

"I really think Yadkin County schools are on the cusp of greatness," he said. "I think we are honing in on the excellent qualities Yadkin County has and we are furthering those qualites for our students so they will be so they will be better prepared. It is going to take a cultural change for everyone in the county because everyone is so used to doing things according to the status quo. But looking at the research out there and how we can deploy new methods is really key in making our students globally competitive."

The two challengers are certainly not new to education. Both have had hands on experience in working with the growth of students and a school system.

Retired Jonesville Elementary Principal Joe Dezern has spent 33 years working in education in Yadkin County. He said he feels that experience will help him work towards improving the school system in the future. "I was born in Yadkin County, I worked in education in Yadkin county, I just feel like my work here gives me something to offer the students and parents of Yadkin County schools," Dezern said.

Dezern began as a teacher at Fall Creek Elementary where he taught for 10 years before becoming the schools principal for five years. Dezern then moved to Jonesville where he retired in 2002 as principal after 18 years. Dezern said he felt the county's new middle schools will be an asset for years to come, but said the care must be taken to begin them on the right foot.

"I think they are moving in the right direction with the middle schools," Dezern said. "As I said earlier I feel that it is extremely important that the middle schools get off to a good start. I think it is important with the staffing at the new middle schools that it will be important to provide staff and administrative development. The middle schools will provide programs for our 7th and 8th graders that they would not have had at the elementary level."

Dezern also pointed to the fact that the western portion of Yadkin County does not currently have representation on the Board as a reason for his candidacy.

"My purpose would be to represent all of the county but another reason that I did want to run is he fact that hte jonesville andwest yadkin areas basically have no representation," Dezern said. "I think people would hopefully like to havesomeone who would be representing them also."

Larry Vestal of Yadkinville is also seeking his first term on the Yadkin County Board of Education, but does have experience serving on school boards in other parts of the state.

Vestal was a member of the Martin County Board of Education near Greenville from 1998, including time as vice chair, until he and his wife moved back to the area following his retirement in 2002. Vestal was employed for 30 years with the Employment Security Commission, reaching the office of Regional Manager in Greenville before his retirement.

Vestal said both of his daughters went through middle schools and he dealt with middle schools while working in Martin County. He said the merits of the middle schools should be seen by Yadkin County residents eventually. "I think that the opposition to the middle schools comes from people who don't really know what they will provide," Vestal said. "Since Yadkin County has been so slow to get middle schools most don't have any experience with them and that is why I am presuming there is opposition."

Vestal said he hopes to work to expand the curriculum throughout the county and continue in the current vein of progress he feels is showing itself in Yadkin County. He says offering a larger variety of courses could help the dropout rate and raise the interest level of many students.

I do feel like that hopefully we can offer more opportunities for the students different courses from what we have had in the past and try to keep the interest of the students so that we won't have problems with the dropout rate," Vestal said. "I think our county is probably better than the other in that matter but there is always room for improvement."