THE KEY TO THE WORKFORCE: Andrea Collins gives a presentation to the crowd regarding the workforce pipeline prior to the Q&A session.

THOMASVILLE — Monday night, a non-partisan town hall meeting and panel discussion were held at the Thomas County Public Library in regard to the local school systems.

Hosted by Earl Williams, a member of the Thomas County Democratic Party, the panel for the non-partisan event included Lucinda Brown, Ucher Dent, Stephan Thomas, Jeremy Rich and Audrey Linder, with Nathaniel Tate moderating and special guest Andrea Collins in attendance.

After introductions of the panelists, Collins, the Executive Director of the Thomasville-Thomas County Chamber of Commerce, spoke on the work force challenge within the community.

“We really started to go down that road in order to understand what were the barriers? What were the barriers for people to go into the work force and what were the barriers for business owners to actually employ,” she said.

Connecting with the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, an organization created to understand the educational layouts of economic development and economic vitality, Collins said that she and Lisa Billups, the Executive Director of the Thomasville Community Resource Center, decided it was important to bring GPEE in on a study of the local area.

“With the help of the Williams’ Foundation, we were able to bring in GPEE to do a community needs assessment,” she said. “So for a solid year, Merrill Wilcox, the project lead, came into the community and we tried our best to connect her with as many people as possible. She did focus groups, she did one-on-one interviews, she pulled state data, she pulled national data.”

Collins said that Wilcox’s presentation showcased the pinch points of the Thomasville and Thomas County community as it related to the birth-to-work pipeline, the steps taken by a Thomasville native from birth to when they enter the workforce in the local area.

These pinch points included early care for children 3 and younger, literacy by third grade, pipelines to post-secondary education, worker barriers and communication and relationship building, according to Collins.

After her presentation, the panelists were questioned about whether or not they believed the city and county school systems should merge, whether they believed that segregation was promoted within the city school system and other beliefs regarding the state of the local school system.

While a majority of the panelists expressed opposition to the idea of merging the two systems, Thompson, a concerned citizen and parent, said that his frustration with the city school system pushed him to consider it.

“Quite frankly, if they can’t get their act together, someone else should do the job, so if that is the Thomas County Central School System in running that system, then maybe that’s what we need to do, obviously not without discussion,” Thompson said.

In regard to segregation, the panelists were in agreement that there is a promotion of segregation within the city school system or, at the very least, a bias in regard to resource allocation, with Brown, a community advocate, saying that one only has to look at the student population of the local schools to see a clear separation.

“I think everyone in this room that knows me at all knows that I think what the Thomasville City School System is doing is nothing but segregation,” she said.

“We have three elementary schools and a middle and a high school, right? and when we look at those so-called neighborhood schools, 98% of Black kids, are at Harper, and these are statistics from 2019 so nothing has changed. 90% are at Scott, Jerger has 71% of white kids.”

The panel also spoke on the impact this separation has on the development of the local children and the city school system’s relationship with the county school system. Afterward, the panelists listened to questions from those in attendance before the meeting came to a close.

This event is the first in a series of “Town Hall: Thomas County Conversations” planned to happen, with the discussions on critical issues within the community sponsored by the TCPD.