Dothan City Schools - EdTribune AL - Alabama Education Data

Marketa George Brings a Relationship Focus to Faine

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Dothan City Schools^↗ 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.

Aundria Sewell Steps Into Beverlye With a Culture-First Lens

Thu, 25 Jun 2026 12:00:00 GMT

Dothan City Schools^↗ has named Aundria L. Sewell principal of Beverlye Intermediate School, placing an instructional leader with Montgomery experience at a campus that served 335 students in 2026.

The district announced the appointment as part of a broader set of new principal contracts approved in April. Sewell currently serves as principal of Dannelley Elementary School in Montgomery, where Dothan said she led school improvement efforts through data-driven instruction, strategic planning and high expectations for students and staff.

"Leading is not about having all the answers," Sewell said in the district release. "It's about building a school environment where students are learning, teachers are growing, and staff are supported."

That sentence is the center of the transition. Sewell is not describing leadership as personality or command. She is describing it as an environment: one where adult growth and student learning are connected.

A School Culture Assignment

Dothan's release described Sewell as bringing a background in instructional leadership and professional learning. It said she previously served as an assistant principal and instructional leader, has been recognized as a National Presenter at the Model Schools Conference and is known for building collaborative school cultures.

Those are the kinds of credentials that matter in an intermediate school. Beverlye sits in the middle years, where students are old enough to need independence and young enough to need a school culture that teaches habits as much as content. Sewell's quote points to that balance: students learning, teachers growing, staff supported.

Beverlye's current reporting line in the Alabama enrollment data begins in 2020, when the school enrolled 585 students. By 2026, it enrolled 335 students, a decline of 250 students, or 42.7%. The 2026 count was seven students above 2025, a small uptick after several years of contraction.

The older package rows use a Beverlye Magnet School label before the current Intermediate line begins. For this article, the chart stays with the current reporting line rather than merging two labels and risking a false sense of continuity.

The District Around Beverlye

Dothan City as a whole has been through a similar enrollment shift, though not as steep as Beverlye's current line. The district enrolled 7,721 students in 2026, down 1,652 students from 2015, a 17.6% decline. Its low point in the available window came in 2023, when enrollment reached 7,653. By 2026, the district was 68 students above that low point.

For a principal, that context is not abstract. Enrollment shapes staffing, schedules, course offerings and the amount of flexibility a school has when it tries to add support. Sewell's focus on teachers and staff is relevant because the adult side of a school has to stay steady even when the student count changes.

The 2025 student context rows show why that steadiness has to be practical. Beverlye reported 73.5% Black enrollment, 17.1% white enrollment and 8.8% Hispanic enrollment. The school also reported 90.2% economically disadvantaged enrollment, 23.2% special education enrollment and 5.2% limited English proficiency. Race and service categories overlap, and the economically disadvantaged and special education rows carry state methodology notes, so these figures describe the current context rather than a clean trend line.

What The Appointment Signals

Superintendent Dr. Garrick Askew said in the same Dothan release that the new principals bring proven experience, leadership and a shared commitment to student success. For Sewell, the district's case is that her experience with school improvement and professional learning fits Beverlye's next chapter.

That is a constructive bet. The data shows a smaller school than Beverlye was at the start of its current reporting line, but it also shows a campus with a clear student profile and a district that has moved slightly above its recent low point. Sewell's own words suggest she sees leadership as building conditions, not issuing answers from above.

The practical question is what those conditions look like by the time students and staff settle into the coming school year: the routines teachers can rely on, the support staff can feel, and the learning environment students experience every day.

That is the kind of work that can be easy to miss from outside a school and impossible to miss from inside one. Beverlye's next chapter will depend less on a single announcement than on whether students encounter steady expectations, whether teachers have useful feedback, and whether families see the school as organized and reachable. Sewell's release frames those pieces as connected, not separate.

The district response for this article came from Karris Harmon, Dothan City Schools' Public Relations Officer, who provided the official release on Sewell's appointment. 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.