To: RAMONA TYSON
Sent: Mon, February 21, 2011 10:04:08 AM
Subject: DeKalb Schools - Redistricting and Consolidation Public Hearings
Greetings ~
On Tuesday, March 1, 2011 and Thursday, March 3, 2011, DeKalb County School System will host public hearings regarding the Superintendent’s Recommendations (February 7, 2011) for the Proposed 2011-12 School Year Redistricting and Consolidation plan. The public hearings will be held both days at 6:30 pm at the Administrative and Instructional Complex Board Room, 1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard, Stone Mountain, GA 30083.
The goal of the public hearings is to provide a fair and equitable opportunity for citizens representing all regions of the DeKalb County School District to comment on the Superintendent’s February 7th
recommendations concerning the redistricting and consolidation plan. DeKalb County citizens are encouraged to come out and express their opinion on the Superintendent’s recommendation. Each person will have an opportunity to provide their opinion on a public comment form. There will
also be opportunities for speaking.
(Below) please find a document outlining the process for the upcoming public hearings on March 1 and March 3. Beginning today, February 21, the team will start receiving calls and conclude taking requests by Friday, February 25 at 3:00 pm. Speakers will be notified by 5:00 pm on Monday, February 28, 2011 via email or phone.
For more information on the Superintendent’s recommendation, please go to:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting
Ramona H. Tyson
Interim Superintendent
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
678-676-0010 office
678-676-0709 fax
tysonr@fc.dekalb.k12.ga.us
===
Public Hearings on the Superintendent’s Recommendations (February 7, 2011)
for the Proposed 2011-12 School Year Redistricting and Consolidation
Tuesday, March 1, 2011 6:30 P.M.
Administrative and Instructional Complex
Board Room
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
The goal of the public hearings is to provide a fair and equitable opportunity for citizens representing all regions of the DeKalb County School District to comment on the Superintendent’s February 7th recommendations concerning the redistricting and consolidation plan.
Please come out and express your opinion on the Superintendent’s recommendation. Each person will have an opportunity to provide their opinion on a public comment form. There will be opportunities for speaking.
You can sign up to speak by either pre-registering or signing up at the public hearing:
1. Pre-register (the first 38 speakers at each meeting), by either:
a. Going online 24 hours a day from 9:00 AM Monday February 21 until 3:00 PM Friday, February 25 at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/publichearings or
b. Calling 678-875-2000:
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Monday February 21, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Tuesday February 22, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Wednesday February 23, 2011;
9:00 AM – 5:00 PM Thursday February 24, 2011; and
9:00 AM – 3:00 PM Friday February 25, 2011.
c. The online/phone registration process will ask you to provide your name, the high school cluster you reside in, zip code of your residence, and email or phone number (in case we need to contact you).
d. A map of high school clusters can be found at http://goo.gl/RqEL7
e. Two persons each night from each cluster will be randomly chosen from all of the online requests to speak from that cluster.
f. Those selected to speak will be notified by 5:00 PM on Monday February 28, 2011 via email or phone.
2. Sign up at the meeting (the second set of 38 speakers at each meeting):
a. Accepting speaking request forms from 5:30 PM until 7:15 PM that night at the meeting.
b. The person at the registration will ask you to write your name, the high school cluster you reside in, and zip code of your residence on the form.
c. Two speakers (and alternates) from each of the 19 high school clusters will be randomly chosen each night from those who sign up at the meeting.
A short presentation on the Superintendent’s recommendation will be followed by 76 speakers, each who will have 90 seconds to speak.
Thursday, March 3, 2011 6:30 P.M.
Administrative and Instructional Complex
Board Room
1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard
Stone Mountain, GA 30083
For more information on the Superintendent’s recommendation, please go to:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting
21 comments:
This is going to be more fun to watch than the Super Bowl.
Can't wait to see who the "randomly" selected speakers will be. Wonder who will do the "random" selection? Not feeling the "transparency" factor in action here. DCSS is on a slippery slope - surprise!
So, "Two persons each night from each cluster will be randomly chosen from all of the
online requests to speak from that cluster" and "Two speakers (and alternates) from each of the 19 high school clusters will be randomly chosen each night from those who sign up at the meeting." Where does that leave those that register by phone?
How long does each speaker have to talk? How will they "randomly" select the people that sign up at the meeting? Gonna be fun!
Maybe all those transfer students will come in handy now. Their parents could nab a speaking slot from their home school district since the speakers are selected by where they live, not where they attend school.
Charade.
What a joke. Some of the most hotly contested lines are elementary. Who is making sure all of those voices are heard.
It is going to be interesting. Everyone will not be heard. However, you can email your school board members.
My school board member does not care.
Completely and utterly unfair way of doing this. There were what, 5 charrettes and online transparent poll after the original proposals? Now we get a random chance at getting our voices heard for changes THAT WEREN'T PART of the original proposals. We are extremely unhappy --our school is closing (Medlock) AND the superintendent's proposal changed our originally redistricted school from Laurel Ridge to Avondale.
There has to be a couple of public hearings to keep up appearances. What the speakers will say is of no consequence. Maybe some deals have been or will be cut in the back room between Ramona and the BOE members. They went from 14 schools to eight. It probably will end up at five.
This is the way the world ends... not with a bang but a whimper.
Having been an occasional speaker at the regular Board meetings, I can tell you that three minutes is a very challenging time limit ... ninety seconds is a ridiculously short period of time for any coherent statement. Have to agree that this is mostly a waste of time ... sad, really.
Kim - the hazard of posting at 2:15 a.m. is that you forget that there are 60 seconds in a minute. Three minutes is 180 seconds. Still a challenge, I agree.
Molly, Kim was referring to the fact that 3 minutes is challenging enough, but these hearings will only allow speakers 90 seconds each to make their point.
A short presentation on the Superintendent’s recommendation will be followed by 76 speakers, each who will have 90 seconds to speak.
Three minutes is a reference to the amount of time a citizen has to comment at a regular BOE meeting. They are only allowing 90 sec. comments at the public hearings - you use about 10 of those stating your name and school! You certainly won't have time to build any case for whatever your main point is!
I didn't read carefully enough - just proof that Kim is more on the ball at 2 a.m. than I am the rest of the day. I agree - 90 seconds isn't time enough to say anything. In the past, they have allotted 2 minutes for these types of meetings.
Have Ms. Tyson and the BOE gone back to post the BOE minutes for the meetings? ALL BOE votes are to be recorded in these minutes per the open meetings law. I noticed that Ms. Tyson has suspended all discussion notes in the few minutes she has posted. Notes summarizing the BOE and DCSS personnel discussions have been on the BOE DCSS website since 2002 until Ms. Tyson took over. I guess she feels the need to limit BOE information. The least she could do is post the BOE videos (Ms. Guillory has those in digital format) and link to them if she refuses to post any discussion notes.
Getting information from this administration is very difficult.
To recap, here is the superintendent's proposal:
Superintendent’s Recommendation
Executive Summary
February 8, 2011
School Consolidations and Closures
Superintendent recommends closing the following eight schools and consolidating the current students to nearby schools:
1. Atherton Elementary School
2. Avondale High School (put in inactive status for consideration in 2020 Vision
plan; DSA would remain)
3. Avondale Middle School (put in inactive status for consideration in 2020 Vision
plan)
4. Glen Haven Elementary School
5. Gresham Park Elementary School
6. Medlock Elementary School
7. Peachcrest Elementary School
8. Sky Haven Elementary School
Redistricting
Superintendent recommends the following attendance line changes:
1. Dunwoody ES becomes a K-5 and redistricts students from Austin ES, Vanderlyn
ES, Chesnut ES, and Kingsley ES.
2. Remove the split feeder at Sagamore Hills ES (Druid Hills/Lakeside).
3. Improve utilization of Briar Vista ES by redistricting students from Fernbank ES
and Sagamore Hills ES.
4. Relieve overcrowding at Pleasantdale ES by redistricting among Pleasantdale ES,
Livsey ES, and Midvale ES.
5. Relieve overcrowding at Princeton ES by redistricting to Rock Chapel ES.
6. Reduce travel distance of existing students to Flat Rock ES, by converting Flat
Rock to a theme school and Bouie to a neighborhood school.
7. Relieve overcrowding at Chapel Hill ES, by redistricting to Bob Mathis ES and
Oak View ES.
Impact
The Superintendent’s recommendation will result in:
1. 41% decrease of elementary schools with enrollment less than 450 students
2. 30% decrease of underutilized schools
3. 19% decrease of overutilized schools
4. 45% decrease of approximately 11,000 open seats
5. Impacts approximately 9,000 students
6. Approximate financial impact of $12.4 million per year
For more information or specific details of the recommendation, please see the website
at http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/redistricting.
To see the chart with the resulting new enrollment numbers, click here:
Superintendent's Recommendation - School Enrollment
Questions remain: How does rezoning people into Clarston make sense given the long span of NI, and the fact that this has not been addressed? Will any of the people zoned to newly enter this failing school stay? Have they been smart enough to realize that this is a problem and planned appropriately to place these students in successful programs?
Is the administration going to continue to stubbornly focus on buildings and numbers without addressing concerns within the buildings?
Will we continue to pay salaries to top administrators who continue to fail the students (why close only 8 schools when we have paid $400,000 for recommendations, just to ignore them) and fail to make the REAL tough decisions? Will we continue to pay the central office to ignore desperate needs for focused programming for students who are failing and gifted and successful kids who are bored and languishing?
Numbers, numbers numbers. So we have saved enough to continue to pay for attorneys for Lewis and whatever the current administrators are cooking up to get us involved in. Yipee! NOTHING changes.
just do it
What a crock of spit!
Post a Comment