Dothan City Schools^↗ET has named Marketa George the next principal of Jerry Lee Faine Elementary School, a 285-student campus where her first public message centered on belief, relationships and a high-quality school experience for every child.

Dothan announced George's appointment in May and said she brings more than two decades of experience in K-12 education and educational leadership to the district. In the official release Dothan City Schools provided to The ALEdTribune, George described the job less as a title change than as an opportunity to build on the school's culture.

"I hold a relentless belief in the limitless potential that our students have," George said.

That is the thread running through the release. George has worked as an educator, assistant principal, elementary school principal and instructional leader, and most recently founded KEYS Primary Academy in Hiram, Georgia, according to the district's release. Dothan described her background as including instructional development, school culture development, data-driven decision making and family-community engagement.

What George Is Naming First

George's language in the release is unusually direct about what she wants families to hear. She said she is excited to foster strong relationships with students, staff, families and the Jerry Lee Faine community. She also said "every child deserves a high quality educational experience no matter what."

Those are broad commitments, but at Faine they land in a specific setting. The school served 285 students in 2026. Its enrollment was unchanged from 2025 after a sharp drop from 393 students in 2024, according to Alabama State Department of Education enrollment data.

The decline should not be read as a verdict on the school or its students. It is the operating landscape George enters. Dothan's public elementary campuses are smaller than they were a decade ago, and Faine is now one of the district's smaller elementary schools. That makes the relationship work George named more concrete: in a smaller building, every family conversation, staff hire and classroom routine carries more weight.

A District Past Its Low Point

Dothan City enrolled 7,721 students in 2026, down 1,652 students from 2015, a 17.6% decline. The district's lowest point in the available enrollment window was 2023, when it enrolled 7,653 students. Since then, Dothan has been roughly stable, sitting 68 students above that low point in 2026.

That stabilization matters for a new principal. A district that has stopped falling, even modestly, can shift some attention from absorbing loss to strengthening the student and family experience that keeps people connected to the system. George's release does not promise an enrollment turnaround. It emphasizes culture and student potential, which are the levers a building leader can actually touch.

The student context at Faine also underscores why her emphasis on belonging cannot be generic. In 2025, Faine reported 93.7% Black enrollment and 97.5% economically disadvantaged enrollment. It also reported 21.8% special education enrollment. The state data rows for race and service categories overlap, and the economically disadvantaged and special education series carry methodology notes, so those figures are best read as current context rather than clean long-term trends.

The Board's Bet

Dothan's release said George was approved during a May board meeting. Superintendent Dr. Garrick Askew described her as a leader with a passion for student success and a commitment to positive school communities. The release also cited her degree work at Capella University, Central Michigan University and the University of West Georgia, and said she is a Certified Instructional Leader.

Those details matter because they point to a principalship built around school culture as much as operations. George's stated focus is not a new program, a slogan or a metric. It is the daily work of making students, staff and families believe the school is organized around their success.

The question ahead for Faine is how that message becomes visible. For families, it may show up in communication and trust. For teachers, it may show up in support and consistency. For students, it may show up in whether the adults in the building see ability before they see obstacles.

That is also why the district's emphasis on George's background in teacher development and family-community engagement matters. A principal's most public work often happens at meetings and events, but the durable work happens in the repeatable routines of a school: how teams look at student work, how families hear from the building before something goes wrong, and how staff members know which goals matter most. George's release suggests she wants those routines to be built around belief and consistency.

The district response for this article came from Karris Harmon, Dothan City Schools' Public Relations Officer, who provided the official release on George's behalf. Data in the charts comes from the Alabama State Department of Education's reports and data.

Detailed code that reproduces the analysis and figures in this article is available exclusively to EdTribune subscribers.