LINDEN – The Linden City Council added a familiar face to the LCS Board of Education last week when it voted to put Tamika Glover Dial into its previously vacant seat.

Dial is a 1988 graduate of Linden High School and has since gone on to acquire a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree that she believes will help her during her time on the Linden City Schools decision-making body.

“I was actually nominated the time before,” Dial said of a previous occasion in which she was approached about filling such a seat.

“It was something I always wanted to do to serve my alma mater.”

Dial works as an Adult Education Instructor for Alabama Southern, experience that helps her to understand rapidly changing trends in both educational patterns and students.

“I work primarily with the 16-17 (year old) fast track students,” she said.

Dial believes her experiences in and out of the classroom as a student and an instructor will help to make her a better board member as she readies to step into the new venture.

“I’m an educator myself,” she said. “I understand about school law. I have a master’s degree and have had numerous school law courses. I understand proration. I have experience as a grant writer. And my undergrad degree is in business management. So I am experienced with bookkeeping and all of the things that help a board run well.”

Dial said one of the challenges facing Linden and other smaller, rural school systems is student retention. She cites the development of new strategies as one of the goals of her term as a board member.

“We need to come up with some marketing strategies to keep our students in the district,” she said before turning her attention to other areas of need. “More funding for the schools. I want to make sure everybody with the schools keeps a positive attitude.”

Her goals are in place. Her seat is cemented and her term has started. Now Dial has the opportunity to give back to the community and school system she loves while working alongside people who helped get her to where she is.

“It’s a great opportunity for me to give back to my home community. I’m a stickler for education because I believe every child deserves a fair chance at education,” Dial said. “We have some great board members already serving and I am eager to get there and work with them. Everybody who is on the board has touched my life in some way. When they place me on this board, I’m going to work my best. Education is one of my loves.”