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Anywhere you live in the United States, there are a lot of opinions about our schools. That includes Troup County.

People are invested in our education system because most of the time it directly involves the future of their own children, but in the large scheme of things our children are the next generation who will be asked to move this country forward.

If you walked around on a busy sidewalk in LaGrange and asked everyone an opinion on the Troup County School System, you’d get a lot of opinions. There’d be plenty of good. We’re sure there’d be plenty of bad. But we guarantee you that no one would have nothing to say. Everyone has a thought on it. Frankly, that’s why we were so surprised that there are no contested races on the school board this election cycle. Incumbent Allen Simpson is running unopposed in his bid for re-election, but so are Kevin Dunn and Anne O’ Brien.

With no offense meant at all to Dunn and O’Brien, who might be the best candidates regardless, it’s a little alarming that someone new can run for an office in our community, have no opposition and then be placed into a role where they suddenly have one-seventh of a say on vote that will impact tens of thousands of people.

The last time the school board had an election, every single race was contested as the TRACER group tried to take over the board. Although we wrote a lot about that election and some of the wild social media debates that occurred because of it, at least people were talking about it. People wanted to talk about our schools and what would happen next. They wanted to talk about the election.  This time, due to the lack of candidates, there’s been no discussion, and our board will see new faces without any sort of forum or choice on the ballot.