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Over
Coffee
by Gay Wiley Shook
gay.shook@gmail.com
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Over
Coffee
by
Gay Wiley Shook
December
2, 2011
When
I heard District 5 School Board member Louise
Radloff
speak at the GOP Town Hall meeting in Peachtree Corners on
November 29th,
she referred to the fact that she has been a member of the
Gwinnett County Public School Board since she first ran for
the position in 1972. Do the math and you will see that she
is approaching her 40th
anniversary of serving the students and families of her
school board district over Lilburn way, as well as the
entire county as part of this unusually cohesive school
board. Hers is an extraordinary and stellar record!
I
remembered an excellent article my friend Phylecia
Wilson
wrote about Mrs. Radloff in 2008 that was published in The
Gwinnett Citizen. I
am reprinting it here for your enjoyment and edification.
Mrs. Radloff is a strong part of the five-member board’s
continuity that has brought Gwinnett County to achieve the
“Best Urban School District in the Nation,” the Broad
Prize for 2010.
Louise Radloff-Canadian legacy
by
Phylecia Wilson
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Louise
Radloff
GC Board of Education
District member
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LILBURN – Anyone who is familiar with Louise Radloff knows
that she is one of Gwinnett County’s most dedicated child
advocates. A long-time member of the Gwinnett County Board
of Education, Radloff also is the executive director of
Interlocking Communities, Inc., an organization that she
developed which offers academic and enrichment learning to
high-risk students and adults. As chair of the Gwinnett
County Board of Health, she has championed children’s
health issues for 14 years and constantly challenges state
officials and what she refers to as their lack of insight
regarding the need to increase per capita funding for low
income families in Gwinnett. “The funding formula hasn’t
changed since the early 70s,” she laments. “Gwinnett is
the second largest county in state and we’re the second
lowest in funding. Our growth hasn’t been addressed.”
The list of what she has done to help children and families
in need goes on and on.
Helping disadvantaged children began in her native Canada
where she was raised in what she calls a rigid Catholic
family in the suburbs of Toronto. She vividly remembers the
priest in their hometown dictating to her father from the
pulpit one Sunday morning that he would take orphaned
children into his home and raise them. “The responsibility
for teaching and taking care of the children who came to
live with us became mine,” she said.
But being Catholic in Toronto in the early 1950s meant job
discrimination for her father and in the early 50s the
family emigrated to the United States, leaving Radloff
behind to finish college at Loretto Abbey College in
Toronto, where their priest determined she should go.
She worked for an engineering firm after graduating college
and then followed her family to Buffalo, New York. She was
working and taking courses at the University of Buffalo when
she met Dick Radloff. Not long after they were married she
traded her green card for her citizenship papers and made
America her permanent home.
It was several years later in 1970 when Dick Radloff’s
employer, Western Electric, transferred him to Gwinnett
County. It was a far different Gwinnett than we know today.
“Beaver Ruin Road had only recently been paved and we had
to go to Doraville to shop,” she recalled.
She enrolled their three children in Norcross Elementary
where amenities were few and far between. The school had no
air conditioning, no piano, no playground equipment and the
principal cut the grass himself. Radloff got involved in
making improvements for the school, working on fundraisers,
painting bathroom walls and volunteering to be a PTA
officer.
After a couple of years of involvement, a neighbor suggested
she run for school board in 1972 and in January of 1973 she
took office, the first Republican to hold an elected office
in Gwinnett County. The rest is history.
Gwinnett was fortunate then and now to inherit this former
Canadian because probably no one person has done more to
help children in Gwinnett County than Louise Radloff. She
has never missed a school board meeting during 36 years of
service as a Gwinnett County School Board member because she
says critical decisions are made there on behalf of
citizens. Among the many honors she has received heralding
her achievements is having a middle school named for her.
A huge proponent of public education, Radloff says that
it’s a community issue that has to be addressed. “It’s
the only way out of poverty,” she affirms. “I represent
an area with the second lowest income in the county. Parents
work hard and can’t be as involved as they would like.
There are cultural issues, too. I am amazed at the number of
Hispanic families who think it’s okay after 8th grade for
kids to get a job and get married.” Young pregnancies, she
says create still another generation of low income families.
Radloff also represents the Parkview cluster which she says
should be cloned. “Parents are involved and they know the
issues,” she said.
Radloff is up for re-election in November and she says that
while what she does in the future depends on the outcome of
the election, she will always stay involved. “I have an
excellent understanding of issues at the state and federal
level,” she explained. “Basically, I want to stay
focused on excelling children who can move ahead and be the
movers and shakers and closing in on the achievement of kids
who are more challenged. It’s what will make America
continue to be the strong economic force that it is. With
the stability and leadership we have here, it can be done in
Gwinnett.” She strongly believes that education is the
great equalizer and that without kids we don’t have a
future.
Whether people live in Canada, the U.S or elsewhere in the
world, Radloff says she believes we were put on this earth
to make a difference. “We all make a difference in
different ways,” she said. “I just happen to believe in
kids.”
***
Hope
all is well and thanks for reading.
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