A press conference was held today by eduKALB, a nonprofit organization with ties to the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce, that is "seeking quality school board leadership in DeKalb County." The stated mission of eduKALB is to facilitate improved school board leadership through civic engagement, community awareness and enhanced professional training. eduKALB plans to host community forums around the county to identify, support and train candidates for school board this November. Five of the nine school board seats are up for reelection this fall. They will endorse a slate on candidates and create voter awareness surrounding this election. Beyond the election, eduKALB plans to continue to offer training to the board of education.
The group's website states, "During election cycles, the eduKALB Board advocates for credible and competent candidates who will provide effective governance to the DeKalb County School System. The organization will endorse a slate of candidates beginning with the November 2, 2010 General Election. The organization also hosts various education forums and seminars to educate the public regarding the roles and responsibilities of school board members and to educate potential candidates on sound governing principles."
"The eduKALB Board is comprised of business, civic, government and community stakeholders representing the diversity that is DeKalb. These men and women are committed to public education and the role it plays in shaping the workforce of tomorrow."
Watch for them. Sign up for their newsletters. They will be hosting events in your area and seek the support of the entire community, as our communities are only as good as our schools.
For more information, visit the website: www.eduKALB.org
Board Members
LEADERSHIP
Gregory B. Levett, Sr. - Co-Chair
Chris Marquardt, Esq. - Co-Chair
Robert Newcomer, Esq. - Treasurer
Leonardo McClarty - Secretary
DIRECTORS
Delores Crowell
Ernest Brown
Bettye Davis
Sadie Dennard
Sara Fountain
Allyson Gevertz
Barbara Holliman
Brenda Landers
Kerry Ramsey
Donata Renfrow, Ph.D.
David Schutten
Arnie Silverman
Rocio Woody
Honorable Ken Wright
49 comments:
Seems like a lot of resources for a very small group of people. But, if it fixes the problem on the front end, I'm all for it.
I think I missed the part that said specifically what donations would be spent on. Can someone send me in the right direction? That's important info to have before donating anything to the "process".
Skeptical whenever business interests (ie. the chamber of commerce) gets involved in education. In my experience business interests are not really interested in the education of children. Instead they are interested in how the reputations of local schools affect property values. They want to produce workers NOT life long learners. Business interests are the ones demanding DATA and data driven choices. Educators understand that students cannot be defined by data but their voices are ignored because there isn't any money behind the voices of educators. Business leaders need to understand that education is not a business! Neither students or their parents are customers. This line of thinking helped spawn NCLB and lead to the even worse Race to the Top. Sec. Duncan is heavily involved with business interests such as the chamber of commerce. His decisions over the last 14 months should make anyone concerned with the education of children to be skeptical of this new organization.
Dekalb County and GA can fix its budget problems by simply increasing taxes. The Chamber of Commerce would of course fight such efforts. Research shows that countries that tax their populations to diminish childhood poverty score better on intl tests. It isn't how they teach in these countries, it's that they don't have impoverished, poorly nourished, and inadequately medically cared for students.
Any organization that claims to want to help students should put its energy behind eliminating poverty. An organization that ignores the problem of poverty and wants to juke stats to make their schools appear to be better does not have the best interests of students in mind.
@ Skeptical
I really don't care what eduKALB's motives are as long as they get results for DCSS students.
Exactly what makes you think raising property taxes will funnel money to students in the classroom? DCSS has raised and raised property taxes and garnered even more property taxes by reassessing property values (which proved to be a house built on sand). The increased money DID NOT decrease class sizes, provide clean and safe learning environments for students, or give children access to cutting edge science and technology equipment. Raising property taxes has had the effect of adding thousands of non-teaching employees and instituting extremely expensive ineffective teaching programs in DCSS. These additional personnel and programs have drained teachers' instructional time while providing nothing in the way of educational progress for students. Look at the utter waste of millions of Title 1 dollars on America's Choice and Instructional Coaches that should have been used as direct instruction for our most vulnerable students.
Are you really happy with a school system that has infinitely more administration and support employees than teachers (8,400 admin and support personnel to less than 7,000 teachers)? That has smelly and non-working toilets, cracked sidewalks, mold in the carpets, and computers that don't work in their schools?
Do you really want a system that has a state of the art gym next to plush administrative offices? Do you like the fact that 2,500 non-teaching employees are being paid millions of dollars a year over market value while teacher pay is being cut and students are being packed like rats into our classrooms? Are you satisfied with the increasingly poor service that teachers and classrooms receive from departments that function as little more than "jobs programs"?
Yes. Business interest have their own self interest at heart, but they also know that a poor educational system is not good for business and profits. Business interests know that cutting, consolidating and outsourcing any and all functions to maximize the "core" business of instructing students is just good business sense. As a former 30 year retired educator, I'm delighted the DCSS business community has decided to get involved.
Sara Fountain is the Director of Leadership DeKalb. Leadership DeKalb alumni are a whole lotta of the problem. They are an incestuous group who play favorites. Fountain was very loyal to the despicable Vernon Jones, and even brought on Jones' top manager, the disgraced Richard Stogner to Leadership DeKalb as a consultant. Crawford Lewis and every top DCSS administrator have taken Leadership DeKalb for the networking, and nothing else.
We have plenty of intelligent and able county residents with absolutely no affilaition with Leadership DeKalb who would make for fine BOE members.
@Anon 9:41 you forgot to mention that Kerry Ramsey is paid by DCSS to be their lobbyist. One has to wonder if a new board member recommended by him/eduKalb will feel indebted to continue the lucrative lobbyist relationship with him. Ah, DCSS Friends & Family goes on...
Arnie Silverman scored a bunch of DeKalb County gov't contracts. But only after he, and then his wife, made sure to make the maximum campaign contributions to every Vernon Jones campaign (CEO, Senate). Hey, what's $2,300 here and another $2,300 there.
Leonardo McClarty, another Friend of Vern, sure picked a group of insiders for "eduDeKalb". At least Ernest Brown and Ken Wright bring a bit of objectivity.
"eduKalb"... what a joke? Do they really think DeKalb parents and taxpayers will vote on a slate this networking group will pick. If Womack thinks it's great then it has to be BAD!!!n We can think for ourselves. The League of Women offer great forums and information on each candidate. Tell the Chamber to di its job.
Ernest Brown ran for the Board of Education and was rejected by his neighbors and community. I guess this is his way of trying again. You may as well put Pat Pope and Crawford Lewis on "eduKalb". They will be in good company.
http://www.ajc.com/news/dekalb/dekalb-schools-looking-to-519172.html
We have three full-timers just for the weak DCSS TV station? And Julie Rhame has five full-timers yet we still have to pay for outside PR help?
"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody." - Bill Cosby
At least they are trying folks! With all of the complaining we've done on this blog and all of the pining that "we" needed to organize and identify good candidates, this group is actually doing it.
Lead, follow, or get out of the way, right? I'm going to follow eduKalb long enough to see what they come up with - that's the least I can do.
That said, I can complain about the name - eduKalb, really? Is that "e-d-u-Kalb," or "ed-u-Kalb," or "e-du-Kalb" ... yuck! :)
Fascinating story Anon. Are they saying that Dale Davis ($101,675.64), Julie Rhame ($116,314.76) and the six other people listed under Public Relations in the 2009 salary schedule (totaling $351,266.00) can't get the job done?! That's over a half million in the PR department! (Before benefits and expenses!)
I have to admit, David Schutton has redeemed himself somewhat in my eyes for making this comment -
While the cost is small, it doesn’t send the right message to parents and teachers who are worried about cuts in the classroom, said David Schutten, president of the Organization of DeKalb Educators.
“Their public relations are disastrous,” he said. “They can hire all the PR people they want, but if the school board members don’t understand how to treat people it will never work. This money is not going to help them operate like responsible, caring adults, so it’s a waste.”
But then Zepora makes this statement -
“The interim superintendent recommended it,” she said. “Our staff is not strong enough to handle these things. Regardless of the cost, there are things needed to run this school system.”
Yeah, Z, they're called "teachers"...
eduKalb would increase their credibility if they verify their DeKalb School facts. They appeared to copy and paste from the DCSS Fast Facts webpage. Perhaps they don't realize this is woefully out of date information from many years ago.
From the eduKalb's website:
http://edukalb.org/facts.html
49,142 elementary school students
22,647 middle school students
29,290 high school students
(Total: 101,079)
Spending per Student: $8,187
Staff/Faculty
Employees Total: 15,859;
Teachers, Media Specialists and Counselors: 53.1%;
Support Personnel: 42.3%;
Administrators: 4.6%
State of Georgia DOE website:
http://public.doe.k12.ga.us/ReportingFW.aspx?PageReq=102&CountyId=644&T=1&FY=2009
eduKalb says we have 101,079 students.
Georgia DOE says we have 96,907 students.
Where did eduKalb get the additional 4,172 students? From DCSS's outdated website.
eduKalb says we have 8,405 teachers, counselors and media specialists (15,859 x 53%). If we subtract the 428 media specialist and counselors) gives us 7977 teachers.
Georgia DOE says we have 6886 teachers. Where did eduKalb get the extra 1091 teachers? From DCSS's out of date website.
Ott of 15,859 employees, less than 7,000 are teachers. Less than 44% employees actually instruct students. That fact needs to be one the eduKalb seeks to rectify. That is the most important fact for DCSS students.
eduKalb: Children or Bonds
Is this more about funding economic development?
Chris Marquardt - Attorney, Alston & Bird,LLP...Can you say Atlanta Beltline?
Robert Newcomer - Attorney, The Lang Legal Group LLC...Once again, Can you say Atlanta Beltline?
Five people from DeKalb Leadership 2009-2010 Board Members:
Sadie Dennard (07)
Assistant to Regional Manager
Georgia Power
Rocio Woody (04)
President
The Road to Recovery, Inc.
Delores Crowell (03)
Regional Manager AT&T
DeKalb Workforce Development Board Chair
Bettye Davis (06)
Office of the CEO
DeKalb County CEO Office
Arnie Silverman (07)
Secretary
Principal Silverman Construction Program Management, Inc.
Ms. Donata Renfrow
DeKalb League of Women Voters
Allyson Gevertz
President League of DeKalb (07)
Please explain the reason a large number of these people were identified as community advocates instead of the titles above?
Disgusted
So glad you trust the voters. Me not so much. On the national level, even, there has been discussion about whether local school boards help or hurt education. In DeKalb, they definitely hurt.
As we speak, SCW is busy claiming victory for not closing schools and counting votes. My understanding is that ZR is probably unbeatable.
If these two are reelected, it doesn't matter who else wins the other seats.
Their poisonous vitriol have divided this county to a point that even if they lose I am not sure how it can be healed.
Then you add in the other craziness and wow, you think that anything the chamber does can get worse?
While there is much questionable about the City of Atlanta's "turnaround", watch one of their board meetings and tell me which is a better run school system?
The Atlanta Chamber of Commerce's Edupac has a tremendous hand in making sure that candidates are elected who represent the needs of all children. And while some of the miraculous improvement is in question at some schools there, it isn't in the areas that have been revitalized by improved schools.
DeKalb, though isn't Atlanta. We don't have Deltas, Cokes, etc headquartered here. The Chamber is relatively weak and its pool of leaders fairly limited. I am skeptical that they will be able raise real dollars.
And they aren't recruiting candidates. Rather they will wait to qualifying and then endorse.
It would be much easier to "throw the board out" if each candidate faced one strong candidate rather than a bunch of them. Though Francis Edwards started in a three way race and then eventually lost in a run off, it is much harder.
I would still like to see an organization that works to recruit that one candidate who is strong enough to win (and of course, good enough to lead).
Kim
It wouldn't have matter if Ms. Colman was talking about cost savings at Redan High School, SCW would have wanted the money for HER schools.
She is running scared. She needs this job for lots of reasons, one of which is the salary I am afraid.
So, it isn't really about CKHS. It is about her reelection.
It's telling who is and is not on eduDeKalb. Who's the biggest non-gov't employer in the county? Emory Hospital and University. What is the biggest economic engine in the county? The Perimeter Center Community Improvement District? What is the fastest growing economic engine in the southside? Stonecrest.
Very surprised Emory, the PCID and Stonecrest aren't represented.
But not very surprised to see ultimate insiders like Bettye Davis, Sara Fountain and Arnie Silverman, the usual suspects, on this.
Please let me in on the secret? Are the eduKalb representatives looking to elect a BOE that will cut the number of teacher positions even further and increase class sizes even more?
It seems logical to me that more DeKalb "insiders" would be in on the effort to help elect a new BOE. I'm just disappointed that this organization still appears to have so many bureaucrats. I wish it had more businesspersons. We have had the guidance of educational bureaucrats - Lewis and now Tyson (and yes - I know they went through Leadership DeKalb - if they are shining examples of what this organization produces, then it truly is an oxymoron). Haven't we had enough of organizational bureaucrats? And really, don't blame NCLB all on business. The DCSS Central Office personnel - all 1,239 of them, have been the chief beneficiaries of this program. It gave Central Office personnel everywhere a chance to solidify their power and create jobs for their friends and relatives.
District 6 - Sadie Dennard
Dennard has been the 6th district representative of the Atlanta School Board since 1994. Since her election, Dennard has served as president and held the post of chairman of the Committees on Instruction, Personnel and Government and Community Involvement. Additionally, she has provided key leadership for the board's strategic planning activities, establishment of curriculum standards, performance standards for teachers and the establishment of a 0-3 early learning task force. Currently, Dennard is the Board Accountabilities Chairman. She's also a member of the board of directors for the Georgia School Board Association, Project GRAD, Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education, WPBA, the Atlanta Council of PTA Advisory Council, the American Association of Blacks in Energy, and the Adams Park Neighborhood Association.
http://www.makeaneducatedchoice.com/candidates.htm
@Anon 8:42: "So, it isn't really about CKHS. It is about her reelection. "
Oh, trust me, I get that. That is what is so infuriating. I guess my point is that the latent constituency at CK cluster has been a push-over in the game of politics for a long, long time.
I may not have money or office but I can rally a very strident defense from the broader community this time. This time, no pushover. I promise quite the opposite.
My angst is that my energies and the energies of the many who are now publicly advocating for CK cluster could be spent MUCH MORE PRODUCTIVELY than fighting a rear-guard against this absurd old guard game of politics over the few crumbs that have been allocated to CKHS.
It is a microcosm of all that reeks to high heaven in recent history of DeKalb BoE and it is shameful. Shameful and a waste of the public's good will ... but again, I guess that is how we got here in the first place.
It's too bad Don McChesney doesn't pipe up at meetings and advocate for "his" schools - Cross Keys in particular. No one has blinked an eye when construction plans were approved for additions to MLK and Miller Grove - when these would not be necessary had Arabia been put in service as a regular "neighborhood" school as was the original stated purpose.
These projects total over $20 million - adding more seats to the system - when we already have so many empty seats. (Arabia has 600-1000 "empty" seats as it is right now.) $20 million could build a nice auditorium for Cross Keys - the ONLY high school not even on the list to get one. Don?
Clarification to a comment above - Sadie Dennard is no longer serving on the APS school board.
Anon 10:32...This is an example of how fundamentally screwed up things are at the higher levels of DCSS. They don't even know what they have. Rhame is more than capable of handling the PR needs of the system, if she were allowed to do so. She and her staff have been handcuffed by Lewis who followed the poor advice of his "yes man" DD. The board does not know any better because they've been fed bad information. So now, we are going to spend more money for a service that can be performed in house with what is already in place. True, in the past, when the PR dept was headed by a series of educators with no PR experience, this was the case, but not now.
It's too bad Don McChesney doesn't pipe up at meetings and advocate for "his" schools - Cross Keys in particular.
I worry about this group. Yes, a couple of good advocates - Ernest Brown being tops, for one. But the group is backed by the Chamber of Commerce. Let's apply the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce's mission statement: "...to support, promote, and sustain business development in DeKalb County ..." and apply it to a school system, via eduKalb funded Board members: - keep business taxes low, and use the school system to promote businesses that are members of the Chamber.
Heavy conflict of interests as I'm sure all sorts of construction firms, consulting firms, law firms, and a host of other businesses that could be members of the Chamber will be connected to that Board member.
I'm not saying any Board candidate they put forth will use that connection to promote themselves or a particular business, but in politics, who you sleep with can get you in trouble, and the Chamber has a pretty big bed: DeKalb Chamber of Commerce Directory.
Good schools promotes business. Bad schools do not promote businesses moving into the county. Could it be as simple as that for a motive?
It could be, but where they are putting their money is into the political - they are pretty blunt about their "efforts to elect qualified school board candidates."
Instead, they could be looking to leverage their higher education partners, and their other businesses, to a) improve high school options for students - including getting under-performing students into job training programs through community colleges(a priority of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation) b) provide all students more opportunities for internships and job shadowing to learn what the job environment is and c) provide equipment and training directly to schools to reduce the burden on the system - allowing more teachers to teach, smaller class sizes, etc. and d) most radical of all - start charter schools - at every level and give it all the resources it needs to thrive, including summer opportunities in the real world.
By doing those things, the Chamber really could control not just the conversation, but a lot of the resources, and really take some of the reins away from the central office.
But that's not what they chose to do. Top-down - put in their Board guys...rather than changing from the bottom-up.
Those sound like great ideas, but they seem somewhat tangential to the main problem which is a totally non functional BOE. I guess we'll just have to wait and see who they endorse.
I was impressed that at least the members of this Board who have young children - have them all in DeKalb public schools. First and foremost - these people are parents. Secondly, yes, if we don't get a handle on the schools, businesses will stay away or move away, which results in less revenue for schools and becomes a vortex of decline.
The Chamber has enough problems of its own to fix. I don't see how they have the time, resources or knowledge to step into this area. Someone needs to take a good hard look at how the funding is being handled and what plans are being made for contributions received.
@ Anonymous 9:41 am
Well, we have a lot of educators with doctorates in the Central Office in DeKalb, and I haven't been impressed with the way they have spent their time- time that taxpayers are paying big bucks for. They have squandered our resources and obviously lack the knowledge to manage this area. I wouldn't discount anyone who could help clean up this mess. And they do have a vested interest in the school system's success from both a business perspective and from a parent's perspective.
Who do you think has the expertise, time and knowledge to address the problems DCSS has?
The proof will be when they announce who the 5 candidates they plan to back will be. Like the posters before I am very skeptical of a bunch that has ties to Vernon Jones, Stogner and others who have done nothing to DeKalb except destroy it. I would love to know what the Metro Chamber thinks of EDUKALB.
I know a lot of posters like Ernest Brown, however when his own community votes for Eugene Walker instead of him, I have to wonder. Didn't Ernest have close ties to the "retired" Crawford Lewis?
Shouldn't DeKalb look to people that are not into politics but actually concerned about the future education of the kids?
I'll listen but I am very skeptical!
"Didn't Ernest have close ties to the "retired" Crawford Lewis? "
LOL - Who didn't have close ties to Lewis? All power was in his hands. If you discounted him, nothing you wanted would ever be done in DCSS. Now if he liked you and promoted you - those are the people I look at with a jaded eye. His top administrators were his closest advisors - that's his professional BFFs.
IMHO, Walker won for two reasons: He had name recognition with older voters and he had $20,000 to spend thanks to the Sembler Corp. The only people who really knew Ernest and voted for him were people who pay attention to school issues and know who has been in there fighting the good fight all along. It seems that our board is comprised of a small group of people with lifelong ties to a racially-charged mutual history. It's time for some fresh voices from the here and the now. I agree with the person on another thread who wrote this comment (worth repeating) -
In my opinion, DCSS will never move beyond the "race riots" of the 1960s and all that it brought with it so long as the leadership of the system is of an age and background to have personally been a part of it all. The vast majority (all but 2 in my estimation) of the DCSS board of ed was either on the receiving end of the stick or on the "granting" end of the stick. So long as those are the people who are in power, rather than a younger generation which wasn't a part of it all, I do not believe we will ever move forward.
The fact that the folks like ZR and SCW refuse to grasp that the county is 80% of their own and that all of those children need them and that another 10% are latino and really need them is beyond me. This ought to be a violation of SACS as no individual represents only one part of the county -- they represent the entire county. White students are a mere 8-10% of the county school child population. It's time to move into the 21st Century. It is absolutely criminal, if not illegal, for them to pay such little attention to the Latino population and I believe it is a brewing law suit.
We will do our best to cover the upcoming election as news becomes available. This includes news as it emerges from eduKALB, however, we in no way intend to hang our hats on candidates endorsed by this group. We can think for ourselves and intend to weigh ALL the candidates at face value and in the manner they approach topics we find important to education. That's why we will try to bring ALL coverage of the elections to this blog.
The League of Women Voters does an excellent job of posting the responses and opinions of candidates, and we will share that here as they are created. Also, Emory Lavista Parent Council in the past has hosted some excellent candidate forums, which we will post about. And the AJC has committed to a much more in-depth review of candidate's platforms and opinions this fall.
However, we are just a blog - and do not report. (I actually have a whole 'nother life beyond this blog if you can believe it!) We simply exist to share the information we find and allow a free-flowing discussion on the topics at hand. I'll leave the work of reporting to the reporters who actually get paid to do the job. That said, it is our intention to do our best to "play nice" and we will certainly be monitoring and deleting comments we deem as crossing the line of civility. I think this election could be a fairly wild ride - especially if it happens in conjunction with criminal indictments and the Heery-Mitchell trial.
So, again, the field is still wide open - if you're considering running for school board, visit this website for deadlines, forms and other info. We look forward to sharing candidate information as it becomes available during the election.
http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/Voter/default.html
BTW - these are the people who have formally registered a Declaration of Intention for School Board -
BOARD OF EDUCATION DISTRICT 1
Nancy Jester
2718 Eaton Place
Atlanta, GA 30341
BOARD OF EDUCATION DISTRICT 3
Wilson, Corey E
3048 Kings Glen Trl
Decatur, GA 30034
http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/Voter/pdf/DOI.pdf
Is that Sonny Jester's wife?
Don't know - but I don't think so. I just found these names at the DeKalb voter website. I guess we'll wait to hear more. Anyone else ready to toss their hat in the ring? I certainly hope some really good people with high integrity dig deeply and find the desire to make this commitment. It's going to be quite a task but we really, really need good people.
@cere: "That said, it is our intention to do our best to "play nice" and we will certainly be monitoring and deleting comments we deem as crossing the line of civility."
Because this blog is widely read by VERY likely voters, you can be sure it will be heavily exploited with "partisan" comments during this election. It could become quite disruptive of the free flowing discourse we encourage here. I'm putting on my thinking cap about how to manage it without creating a huge burden on you ... what do you think about a volunteer student who spend the summer strictly patrolling comment threads for inappropriate comments? Heck, I might even be able to get this funded as a summer job at $8/hr through a program I read about ... send me your thoughts.
I really think there is a flood coming ...
@No Duh: "Is that Sonny Jester's wife?"
I don't know but I don't think so ... his kids were/are Dunwoody Wildcats and he was/is a big booster there. She lives over near St. Pius and I think has younger children.
Sonny Jester's wife is Laura.
I, agree, though that Cere needs a way to keep this blog from turning into either free advertising or a free for all debate center.
I too will think about how that can best be accomplished.
To run, I don't think you have to file your intention. Isn't that an optional step?
I am not that familiar with the process, but I do know that we won't really know who has filed to run until after the deadline - which I think is sometime in June. So yeah, summer could be interesting. It's very easy to turn this into a monitored blog - all comments are sent to the "dashboard" and have to be approved. I do that occasionally when conversations get a bit rough. If you think this could be a good student project, give it a whirl - what an education for someone! (I just hope the $8 an hour comes from a grant or something... this blog has no dough!)
This just came via email from our friends at Yahoo users group - : dekalbschools2010@yahoogroups.com
Hello Concerned Citizens of Dekalb County, My name is Corey Wilson and yes, I am running for the seat for District 3. I am a product of Dekalb Co. School System and presently the PTA president of Oak View Elementary (past 3 years). I understand your concerns for our children and their future. My interest in a better Dekalb not only stems from my being a product but also because I have two young men that will be in the system for a long time to come. I look forward to talking to you and expressing my views to you in the months to come. Andi is correct; I did start the FBI (Fathers Being Involved) program at Oak View and will continuously work on implementing this program in other Dekalb county school. Back in Oct 2009, I filed my DOI (Declaration of Intent) with the Board of Registars of Dekalb County. I look forward to your support this Nov 2,2010.
Additionally - I think we've mentioned that Nancy Jester is running for District 1. She has also filed a Declaration of Intent and we look forward to learning more about Nancy!
http://web.co.dekalb.ga.us/Voter/pdf/DOI.pdf
-----
Come on out good people and run!
@ Cerebration
This is just an idea - but could you put a page here that tells who is running for BOE and post a link to it - under "Pages" on the right hand side menu - like you did for Facts and Sources, Budget and Budget Suggestions, etc.?
Maybe call it "Who's running for the DCSS BOE?" or whatever - it's your blog.
We could email this link to friends and family. It would be a place that DeKalb citizens could go to see who is running for BOE.
I've been trying to keep a running tally, but it's hard to do. I can imagine what it must be like for people who drop in and out of this blog.
BOE candidates depend on word of mouth and "shoe leather" to get the work out. But there must be a better way. Almost everyone has email, and many times it's merely a matter of having a link to copy and paste into an email to your friends and neighbors.
Just an idea. I know you're really busy.
As so it is done! Check out our new page called, News on the Candidates for School Board under the PAGES on the right panel. Send us updates by email -
reparteeforfun@gmail.com
(Pages don't have a comments feature, sorry.)
That's great. A centralized location to see who's running for the BOE. Awesome!! Thanks!
@ Cerebration
Is Ella running?
April 22nd post on DeKalb Watch
"I am Ella Smith. I love the students of the Dekalb County School System.... I want to make a difference as to what happens in this school system. Because of this I have decided to run for district 9 school board position. "
UPDATE on eduKALB - this is from this week's Dunwoody Crier -
eduDeKalb evaluates candidates in five school board races
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