SPRINGFIELD — Bradley Johnson said he is seeking for the Effingham County Board of Education District 3 seat because he senses a need for some fresh thinking. He said he and his wife prayerfully considered whether to run after he was encouraged to do so by several people.
Johnson is a small-business owner and has three children. One already graduated and two more coming up in the Effingham County School District.
“I’m at a point where I want to start giving back to start giving back to the community,” Johnson said.
In his business, Johnson focuses on QuickBooks consulting, bookkeeping, tax returns and typical CPA work.
“I like to analyze things,” he said. “I like to discuss things. I like to hear both sides of a presentation.”
Johnson said he also sits on the Church and Pastor’s Council at the Rincon Church of God.
“We deal with a lot of situations in a similar setting, like meetings and behind-the-scenes things dealing with confidentiality,” he explained.
Johnson attended Armstrong State College before transferring to Georgia Southern University where he attained his business degree in accounting. He went back to Southern to get his Master’s degree.
A resident of Effingham County since 1992, Johnson believes Effingham County has the best school system around and that’s the reason he and his family live here.
Johnson sees the need for new schools and said he has been hoping a new high school would be built near Ebenezer Middle School.
He said, “As far as the load, you’re going to have more teachers that are going to need to be hired, you’re going to need more classrooms and you may even need to expand the school districts.”
Johnson emphasized that he is not a politician but simply wants to serve his community.
In thinking about educational impacts from this COVID-19 virus, Bradley said this has shown that the education system among others, needs to get prepared for incidents like this one. He doesn’t think that permanent across-the-board distance learning is the way to go.
He said, in the majority of cases, both parents of a child work, making it difficult to consider online learning as the default system. He also believes the children need social interaction and one-on-one face time with the teachers.
