Profile of a Clayton County Board Member

You may want to read my Disclaimer before going any further. I’m about to rant.

Ok, so the AJC ran an article about a Clayton County School Board member named Trinia Garrett who allegedly downloaded some inappropriate stuff on her county-issued computer. As it turns out, this isn’t the first time Ms. Garrett has had legal troubles, and the Clayton County board itself is certainly no stranger to public humiliation, but it really wasn’t the allegation of porn-hoarding on school property that bothered me. It was Ms. Garrett’s atrocious grammar.

According to the report, when asked if the county would have to pay for an additional examination of her laptop, Garrett said:

I don’t need nobody to pay for nothing for me. I have people to do stuff for me.

I don't know what she's got under that ridiculous hat, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's not a copy of The Elements of Style. Used without permission of WSB or Ms. Garrett.

Now I can’t claim to be perfect. I know I’m not, but really? A school board member using that kind of language on official record? Surely this linguistic faux pas could be blamed on the fact that Ms. Garrett was under considerable stress and simply lost her cool, right?

Then I found out that Trinia Garrett has a MySpace account.

Here is a word-for-word copy of the “About Me” section of her profile:

Trinia M. Garrett was born April 22, 1973 in Pineville, Louisiana (a county girl). She made her way to Clayton County, Georgia by way of Tx and Ala many years ago. After giving up her career as a master hairstylist she decided to try something new by venturing out into the non-profit world, she founded Putting the Past Behind Us Wish Foundation, Inc (for Sexual Abuse Children), became a Elective Official for Clayton County (Board Member Representive for District 7), and she enter into the entertainment world. Trinia has been very invovle in the community as advocate and activist for our children. Ms. Garrett has written her first book “Broken 2 B Made Whole” which is still under goning construction and she has started the process of two new venture The Trinia M. Garrett Keloids Foundation (for children) and Road Dawaggz Ent (event planners). Ms. Garrett is a true meaning of a hard working single parent for the betterment for our children and community. Ms. Garrett goal is to stay focus and prevent our children from falling through the cracks of society. In the famous words of Ms. Garrett “everybody can’t be a great artist but a great artist can come from anywhere”

Mull that ridiculousness over in your mind for a minute. Please also note that the “famous words of Ms. Garrett” are actually a misquoted line from Disney’s Ratatouille. Yeah…Ms. Garrett can add ‘plagiarism’ to her shameful list of “Ironic things I’ve done that are completely contrary to what I should be doing as a professional of the American education system.”

Since the blurb is written in third person, I can only assume one of two things happened: either Ms. Garrett enjoys utterly destroying the rules of English grammar while referring to herself as “Ms. Garrett,” or she allowed someone else to write that literary abomination and post it to her account. Regardless of the situation, it’s just bad PR to have something like that up for the public to see, especially when you’re a school board member.

After you’re done cringing at the grammar, usage, and spelling mistakes that my sixth grade class identified and corrected today, take a moment to review Ms. Garrett’s exemplary resume prior to becoming a school board rep: master hairstylist.

Master hairstylist. Again, mull that ridiculousness over in your head. Now, there’s nothing wrong with going to beauty school, and there is absolutely no shame in being a cosmetologist; however, I wouldn’t want a journalism major performing open-heart surgery on my wife, and I certainly don’t want a “master hairstylist” deciding the outcome of my child’s education. Trinia Garrett has no college degree in her field. She can’t even legally teach in the state, yet she’s “qualified” to make decisions that affect the jobs of hundreds of teachers and impact the education of over 50,000 children?

And lest you think that I have the wrong Trinia Garrett on this MySpace profile, well just check out Ms. Garrett’s own bio on the Clayton County School Board web page to confirm her glowing credentials.

I will say this for Ms. Garrett: she does seem to care about children. That’s admirable. She has a couple of child-centered organizations that she’s working with (and an event planning company called “Road Dawggz Ent.”), but honestly, as an outsider looking in, this woman doesn’t seem fit to substitute at my school, let alone direct the course of education for an entire county.

And we wonder why Georgia is the butt of so many jokes. We deserve to be.

Thanks, Clayton County School Board, for continuing to make us all look stupid.