He will face school board member and Vice Chair Janet Read in vying for the seat that will be elected countywide. The seat was created under House Bill 978 during this year’s legislative session.
Dukes pledged to eliminate all teacher furloughs by reducing central office staff and said he will take every step possible to cut the county dropout rate in half, while never voting for a tax increase, in making his announcement.
“During the last few weeks, I have discovered a groundswell of support for a true conservative as Cherokee County school board chair,” Dukes said. “Parents, teachers, community leaders and citizens share my sincere passion for the children of our county. We can have the highest performing school system in Georgia if we put students first and pledge to work with other elected leaders to solve problems. And we can do all this without raising taxes.”
Dukes, who sits on the governing council for Cherokee Charter Academy and is a member of the Georgia Charter Educational Foundation’s governing board that manages the charter school, said he wants to promote better relations in the community and stop the fighting about charter schools.
“I will work with families and community leaders to solve problems by refocusing energies on education and finding common ground. When elected school board chair,” he said. “I can guarantee the working relationship between this school board and others will be repaired immediately.”
As the managing member of Danny F. Dukes and Associates, a financial consulting firm and a licensed certified public accountant, Dukes said he is qualified to give Cherokee County residents the fiscal oversight many have felt was lacking on the school board for many years.
Dukes said he is a life-long fiscal conservative, a seventh-generation Georgian and has resided in Cherokee County for 10 years.
He is a member of the Rotary Club of Cherokee County and the Cherokee County Republican Party.
Professionally, he is a member of the American Institute of Public Accountants and the Georgia Society of Public Accountants where he has served as committee chair and served as an adjunct professor for both Clayton State College and State University and Keller Graduate School.
He graduated from Mercer University and then received his master’s degree in business administration in Accounting from Georgia College State University.
Dukes has been married to wife Jeanie for 29 years. The couple has son, Alex, who was a member of the first graduating class of Creekview High School is now a senior at Shorter University.
Seems like a conflict of interest to me!