DALTON, Ga. — Holly Ridley was one of several parents who criticized the members of the Dalton Board of Education Monday night for failing to deal with overcrowding concerns at Dalton Middle and Dalton High School, and she made one simple request.

“Do something.”

Ridley, a former member of the Whitfield County Board of Education, has one son who has graduated from Dalton High School and another currently there. She said the time for studies, committees and searching for some sort of magic bullet to address every single concern is at an end. Board members had previously discussed a 6-12 grade school but decided against it.

“It is your responsibility to do something about the overcrowding … Let our community know by your actions that you are our voice,” Ridley said. “We expect you to partner with our community and our parents and our educators to do what is best for our children and make the hard decisions. Do something. Anything, rather than allow a status quo. The status quo is no longer acceptable and we expect action.”

Several parents said they blame overcrowding for the recent arrests at the high school involving the sale of prescription drugs, falling test scores that threaten to push Dalton High onto the list of Georgia’s failing schools for the first time and increased travel for student-athletes who are forced to compete at the second-highest level of competition in the state.

Ridley criticized both the board members and Superintendent Jim Hawkins, saying neither the board nor the school administration is “functioning.”

“Now who is going to take responsibility? Will it be you, Mr. Hawkins? Because you were hired into this situation … and yet we still haven’t done anything. You’ve commissioned three separate committees … and we still do not have a plan implemented. Now, Dr. Fromm (school board Chairman Rick Fromm), is it going to be you? You have been on this board this entire time this issue has been a problem.”

“For over nine years, we have had committee after committee to address a single pressing issue and neither the superintendent nor the Board of Education has done anything to address it,” she said.

Fromm responded during board member comments that “Talk is cheap, if that is what I am hearing you guys saying, but you have to realize also everyone is much more an expert on someone else’s job oftentimes. Talk is cheap. We care about academic achievement, and I don’t see a lot of these people volunteering for reading in schools. We’ve got a lot of students who are precious and to sell them short is the wrong thing. Every one of these kids matters and we have to look out after all of their interests.”

Parent Ross Maret had argued during the public comments that the board members are failing the students through inaction.

“Rick, you talked early that any plan we come up with cannot leave one child wanting,” Maret said. “In this meeting tonight, we have talked about children who are already left wanting. We don’t have the money to go back to state-mandated class sizes, so those kids are wanting. We have kids that will be in trailers and those kids are wanting. You have kids driving an hour and a half or two hours once a week (for athletics), and those kids are left wanting.”

“It is time to do something,” he said.

Board member Tulley Johnson said he received a clear message.

“The thing about it is that it all comes down to taxes,” Johnson said. “Now, y’all have given us a challenge. We are challenged, as you say. We will do something about it … It is just about making the right decisions. We accept that challenge tonight, and I thank you for giving that challenge to us.“