DeKalb County School Closures and Redistricting are coming and listen to Board Member Sarah Copelin-Wood argue at the inequities.

Last week Ms. Ramona Tyson, Interim Superintendent of the DeKalb County School System informed those attending the Dunwoody Chamblee Parents Council that a number of schools in the central and south parts of DeKalb County are severely underpopulated, which means the district is spending more money to keep them up and running. Due to this and over population in the northern part of the county, Ms. Tyson said that redistricting and consolidation is a must for the entire district. She stated that numerous community meetings on the subject are in our future.

I was provided a DVD of the BOE meeting of August 27th and after viewing I decided to highlight Board Member, Ms. Sarah Copelin-Woods closing comments berating the data being used for future consolidation, the staff member providing it, as well as the process in moving forward. In my opinion, Ms. Woods seems a little out of touch in this 20 minute tirade (broken into two parts) where she not only publicly berates a single staffer, she openly states that she is willing to provide tit for tat on wasting our tax money as long as she gets hers. The comments in video 1 at 8:58, when she states "Fellow Board Members, I always voted for your schools, whatever it is. If you wanted a Taj Mahal out there with parking decks ..." is clearly a disgrace.

We deserve better.

Video of first half of comments.

2nd half with Ramona Tyson response.

DeKalb businesses want better school board leaders

This is an interesting article from last week's AJC. It announces the DeKalb Chamber of Commerce's establishment of eduKalb, the nonprofit committee that will identify and endorse school board candidates to replace the five up for reelection in November.  (Odd numbered districts 1, 3, 5, 7 and 9 represented by Jim Redovian, Sarah Copelin-Wood, Jay Cunningham, Zepora Roberts and Gene Walker respectively.)

Another key issue the Chamber is focusing on is some kind of ethics policy for the board of education. Kevin Levitas attempted to address this in the legislature and the board itself responded with some kind of ethics policy of their own, but got hung up arguing about whether to limit "gifts" to $50 or $100. (Click here for our post on that board meeting.)

The AJC article states,

Discussion about school ethics legislation comes as District 3 board member Sarah Copelin-Wood, (pictured) who is up for re-election, faces an ethics complaint. She is accused of meddling in the school closure process by directing members of the Citizens Planning Task Force how to vote.

The complaint against Wood is pending and will be addressed after the board finalizes its budget, Bowen said.

With all our board has to contend with at the moment, I foresee this ethics policy and follow-up on Ms. Copeland-Wood's ethics complaint possibly getting buried or falling by the wayside. I hope that doesn't happen, as a strong ethics policy is vital to restoring some level of trust in the board. But I am concerned that all of the discussion this past year about ethics will be swept under the rug and in the end become "much ado about nothing". We need to continue to follow up on this situation and see that a strong ethics policy is put in place, and that Ms. Woods provides answers to the complaint against her. This is an important issue.

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You may also be interested in reading our post on eduKALB. If so, click here.