Dr. Traci Lawson McBride, a retired Hall County educator, has become the third candidate to enter the race for Post 2 on the Hall County Board of Education.

McBride announced her bid at Saturday’s meeting of the Hall County Republican Party and the Republican Women of Hall County at the Holiday Inn-Lanier Center in Gainesville.

McBride is a lifelong Hall resident and Johnson High graduate. She served as an English teacher at Johnson and West Hall high schools, and an administrator at West Hall. She currently works as an adjunct English instructor at Lanier Technical College’s Winder campus and at Gwinnett Technical College in Lawrenceville.

She joins the race against two-term incumbent Brian Sloan and South Hall businessman Mark Pettitt. All are Republicans.

McBride said in a news release she opposes implementing the controversial Common Core curriculum standards.

“While I have worked with the school system for many years, I believe that the board members have become complacent in their understanding and response to one of the current driving forces in education, the Common Core Standards,” McBride said. “Common Core provides less rigorous standards to be taught to our students while allowing more and more federal government intrusion into our classrooms.”

“Since these standards were written by non-educators, they are lacking in a sensible scope and sequence and are less rigorous than the Georgia Performance Standards.”

McBride said the district has succeeded in offering programs of choice and charter schools, providing high school courses for middle schoolers, online courses as alternatives for students and expanded Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate programs. Yet she said teachers are struggling with larger class sizes, more work designing and learning a new curriculum plus dealing with salary cuts and higher health insurance premiums.

She calls for better relationships between taxpayers, parents, educators and business leaders.

“Our children are our most valuable assets, and our schools should showcase and enrich each child’s unique abilities, offering to support those abilities and provide the education necessary for them to reach their dreams and potential,” she said.

McBride lives in Braselton with her husband Gary, and son, Alex.