The Problem

When people can't find good jobs close to home, families fracture and communities suffer. In our district, the consequences are visible: young people leave, storefronts close, and the tax base shrinks. What is less visible — but just as real — is the connection between economic despair and public safety. Research consistently shows that drug trafficking and substance abuse thrive in communities without opportunity. Addressing safety means addressing the conditions that create it.

How We Got Here

Georgia's public school funding formula hasn't been meaningfully updated since 1985 and has been fully funded only three times in the last 25 years — leaving a cumulative shortfall exceeding $10 billion. Georgia is also one of only six states that provides no additional funding to help schools serving students from low-income families. Rural counties like ours — with thin property tax bases and high poverty rates — absorb that shortfall hardest.

At the same time, we have spent decades telling every student that a four-year college degree is the only path to success, while trades and technical training were treated as lesser options. The result: a workforce pipeline that doesn't match the jobs available here, and young people leaving to find opportunity elsewhere.

What I Will Do

I commit to fighting for these solutions in the Georgia House:

• Fully fund our public schools and modernize the QBE formula to reflect what education actually costs today

• Expand Georgia's HOPE Career Grant, which covers tuition for high-demand technical programs, and make those programs physically accessible in every county in our district

• Build direct pipelines from high schools to Building Trades apprenticeship programs — treating the trades as seriously as the college track

• Connect workforce training to local economic development so that training leads to jobs available right here at home

• Support community investment as the foundation of public safety — because stable jobs, strong schools, and connected communities are the most effective long-term investment we can make in the safety of every family in this district

Opportunity is the best investment we can make in the future of this district — and in the safety of every family in it.

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