U.S. Senator Johnny Isakson visited Newton and Walton counties Monday, taking tours and spending time answering questions from residents.

He toured Newton College and Career Academy (NCCA), learning about the different pathways students can take to ready themselves for careers after school. He met students and leaders from the school and Newton County School System, hearing about a range of topics, from room-wide recording systems that allow absent students to watch class to a necklace that teachers wear with a button that can be pressed in an emergency situation to begin recording and sending response information to designated administration or law enforcement.

“The technology is definitely changing, and we love to be at the forefront here in Newton County,” said Chad Walker, newly appointed NCCA principal/CEO.

The soon-to-be senior senator and 50-year political veteran met students in the engineering, robotics and manufacturing classrooms before taking a trip through the filming and broadcasting rooms.

He then stopped by the Social Circle Rotary Club to speak and participate in a Q&A session. He did the same at Georgia Perimeter College (GPC) after meeting with the campus president and touring the area.

“Our country is facing some significant challenges, but one thing is we are a democracy from the bottom up,” Isakson said to the audience at GPC, which included residents and students.

His topics of discussion included the nation’s foreign policy, especially in Iraq and Syria.

“It is right to take the fighting troops home once that part was over, but we should never have (completely) left Iraq and the precious assets we left there,” Isakson said.

He answered a student’s question by assuring her higher education is one of the “keys to most of the problems we have in mankind.”