Whitfield school board candidate profile: Chuck Oliver

By Jamie Jones

Chuck Oliver never wanted to be a politician.

“I didn’t want to have any part of politics,” said Oliver, the vice chairman of the Whitfield County Board of Education. “I’m not a politician. I don’t like the political side of it at all. I’ve lived in the community all of my life. I went to Eastside School, my mother went to Eastside School. I’m a local product and all of my children went to Eastside School. I agreed to serve simply out of a sense of duty and responsibility.”

Oliver faces Thomas Barton for the District 1 seat on the board in the Republican primary on July 15. The winner of the primary is expected to face Mitchell Hasty, who is unopposed in the Democratic primary.

Oliver, 53, is a sales engineer for Mid-South Metal Works. He has served on the board since spring 1995 when he was appointed by the grand jury to fill the unexpired term of Charles Rogers, who had moved out of district.

Thirteen years ago, Oliver was hesitant even to enter the political world.

So why is he running again?

“It’s been a very rewarding time on the board,” Oliver said. “There have been times when it hasn’t been fun. We’ve got some big responsibilities coming up. The community approved a SPLOST (Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax) almost two years ago now and we’re going to build two new schools (an elementary school on Cedar Ridge Road and a high school near Georgia Highway 2). One of my main motivations for staying on another term is to see that through.”

The site of the new high school, which borders Prater’s Mill, has been a source of controversy. Some residents believe the school will harm the historic flavor of the area and cause unwanted growth. It was the third site the board seriously considered. Oliver said there is a small group that is not happy with the selection.

“There’s not as much controversy as there is volume,” Oliver said. “There are not near as many people upset about it as people would be led to believe.”

The board bought the property because it met all of the building requirements and they considered it a “good piece of property,” Oliver said.

“Anywhere you build it — anywhere you build it — unless you build it down a salt mine or on top of a mountain, you’re going to have an issue of somebody who doesn’t want it in their backyard,” Oliver said. “I don’t know what to say to that other than I guess if I lived right next door to it, I might not want it either. But you have to build it somewhere.”

Oliver said he would have preferred the high school be located “a little further south.”

“But when you look at where the kids live and you look at the fact they are on 11 trailers at Northwest High School and see how overcrowded Northwest is, then you’ve got to look at the area and say, ‘OK, we’ve got to relieve the overcrowding at Northwest and we’ll take some students from Southeast, the ones that are on the extreme northeastern of the Southeast attendance boundary,’” Oliver said.

When the new high school is completed, the county will have three comprehensive high schools with about 1,150 students each, he said.

“That’s a very good picture to see,” Oliver said. “That’s where we should be, things kind of evened out. It’d be nice to say you could put one in this corner, one in that corner and that corner, but what you’d have is you might divide it up geographically, but you would have a lot of students driving a long way to school. That location, the general area, is where the school should go.”

Oliver doesn’t believe school board members should be involved in the day-to-day operations of the system, adding members are constitutionally charged with three jobs: hire the superintendent, set the property tax rate and build new schools.

“I don’t get upset that this teacher went there and this coach didn’t get this job or this person didn’t go where I thought he should because that’s not what school boards do,” Oliver said. “We just kind of chart the course and want to make sure we have the very best people we can find to run the school system. The school board doesn’t run the school system. The board is responsible for hiring the people that do that.”

School board members are paid $50 per meeting. During the 2007-2008 school year, Whitfield County had approximately 13,400 students and about 1,800 employees. The total fiscal year 2009 budget, which includes local, state and federal funds as well as food service, was approved last month and totals $122.03 million.