Will Sembler still buy the property on North Druid Hills from the DeKalb County School System?

I see the school property on North Druid Hills as nice as many of the schools in the central and the north side of DeKalb County. Is the county commissioners and school system planning to condemn these school structures on North Druid Hills Road?

However, there is not doubt that the school property itself, along with Adams Stadium, is irreplaceable to the school system and the residents of Central DeKalb. Would this campus not be a better place for the military high school than the small Heritage facility? According to my sources, the Heritage facility only holds 396 ELEMENTARY students. The military facility is supposed to serve 600 high school students in the future.

At least one school board member and many commissioners got political donations to their campaign by Sembler. Of course, this cooperation wants something in return. Could it be the property on North Druid Hills and will our new school board allow this to happen? I hope they will not! Nevertheless, it is my understanding that only two school board members out of nine are fighting to keep the property on North Druid Hills from being condemned if these buildings could be remodeled. What do you think? Will the citizens of Central DeKalb allow this to happen? Do we really want the property sold on North Druid Hill's road to Sembler or any other company as this property will never be able to be replaced at the price it would be sold.

Georgia PTA’s weekly update on legislative activity

The General Assembly has completed 37 of the 40 days that it will meet in 2009. There are only three days left this session so bills will be moving fast and furiously next week. We are seeing language from bills thought dead amended to bills that are moving so anything can happen in the next few days. The Senate still has not passed a budget for next year so this final week promises to be a very interesting one. The revenue numbers remain grim so there’s talk that a special session may be needed. In this time of declining revenue it’s of note that the legislature has passed several bills that provide tax credits or exemptions that directly affect the government’s available funds.

Update: School Nurse Funding

We still don’t know about the funding for school nurses. The House put it back in, the Senate has had no public hearings so no one knows what is in their version of the 2010 budget.
• Call your Senator and let him know funding for school nurses is critical!
• If it makes it out of the legislature intact, the Governor can still line item veto the funding so contact him and let him know the funding for nurses is important to you.

Voucher Legislation:

Just when many thought SB 90 was done for this session, some of the language from it was amended to HB 251, the bill that allows intra-district school transfers. While the private school language was not added, the language allowing transfers between school districts was. PTA supports school choice but the issue here is how to pay for the student who transfers from one district to another. The student doesn’t reside in the new district so no property tax revenue is generated to fund his education. Currently districts can charge tuition for non-district students. In this bill the state and local funds from the sending school district would go to the new school district. The decision about how much money follows the child rests not with the local district but with the state. Local systems do not calculate how much is spent per pupil. To take the total dollars spent and divide by the number of students is too simplistic. Buses need to run whether there are 20 students or 40 students riding them, lights and heat have to be on in the school buildings and buildings must be cleaned. This bill takes the decision making about how local dollars are spent out of the control of the taxing authority that raised the dollars which many argue is unconstitutional. Some people argue that their dollars should follow their child but the reality is that it is not just their dollars; it is every tax payer’s dollars that are being spent to educate that child.

Legislation that Passed both Chambers:

HB 149: Move on When Ready: Students in 11th and 12th grades may enroll in Georgia public colleges and take Department of Education approved courses that will meet both high school graduation requirements and earn them college credit. Hours earned will not count against HOPE. What this means to you: If a student is ready to attend college and only has a few high school credits remaining to fulfill the high school diploma requirements, (s)he can earn those credits while attending college..

HB 300: Parents to be informed about meningococcal meningitis and other vaccines.

HB 484: Children of military personnel on active duty stationed in GA can qualify for HOPE.

SB 69: Any person who allows, permits, encourages or requires that a child engage in prostitution or sexually explicit conduct may be found guilty of sexual exploitation. (Currently only child’s parents of caregiver could be so charged).

HB 280: Provides differentiated pay for math and science teachers effective July 1, 2010.

HB 233: OPPOSE Two year freeze on any appreciation on the value of a property, even if it changes hands.

SB 84: Requires local school boards to have at most seven members (unless grandfathered) and abide by an ethics policy. The bill gives the Governor the power to remove board members if a school system is placed on probation by an accrediting agency and board members can remove fellow board members by a 2/3 vote. House amends: Board members cannot serve on a board of a private elem. or secondary school at the same time as on a local BOE. Prohibits gifts over $100.

Legislation to Watch: A comprehensive list of potential bills is on the website

HB 120: 2009 sales tax holiday would be from July 30 to August 2. Passed House and S. Finance

HB 23: Drivers under age 18 cannot use a cell phone nor text message while driving. Exceptions are made for driver emergencies, reporting an accident or criminal activity, or using while parked. Any driver involved in an accident while using a wireless device will face higher penalties. Passed House, passed Senate Public Safety

HB 193: Permits the required 180 day school year to be defined in hours, thus providing local school boards with flexibility in setting the school calendar. Passed House, passed Sen. Ed.

HB 243: Eliminates bonus for Nat’l Board Certified teachers. Grandfathers those currently receiving the bonus and those who began the certification process prior to Mar. 1, 2009. Eliminates from funding those teachers leaving teaching and going into administration or some other area effective July 1, 2009. Passed: Housed. Passed Sen. Ed.

HB 400: BRIDGE, Building Resourceful Individuals to Develop Georgia’s Economy Act. Department of Education is to develop programs so a student can get courses at the home school, a technical college, a two or four year college, a work site as an apprentice, and other approved settings. Middle grades advisement shall provide counseling, advisement, career awareness, career interest inventories to evaluate each student’s academic skills and career interests. In grade 8, students shall select a preferred focused program and study and develop an individual graduation plan, IGP, with parents. High school students shall have annual reviews of the IGP which are to include academic core subjects and course work in math and science OR humanities, fine arts, and foreign language, OR sequenced career pathway courses; include IEP components if applicable. Passed House, to be held and will likely not pass this session

SB 5: SUPPORT Requires seatbelts be worn in all pickup trucks with an exception for those over 18 who are doing agricultural work.. Passed Senate. SB 23 also requires seatbelt use in pickup trucks but was voted down.

SB 8: Allows elementary and middle school students to carry and self administer epi-pens. Passed Senate, passed House Health/Human Services

SB 94: Removes the requirement that a dependent child up to the age 25 be a full-time student to be insured medically under the parent’s health plan. Passed Senate

SB 114: Provides special provisions for children of military personnel who transfer into GA public schools including waivers to some GA graduation requirements and additional allowable absences. Passed Senate, passed House Ed.

SB 206: Requires tax expenditure review, detailing for each item the amount of tax revenue foregone for at least a three year period, the intended objective of the expenditure, an analysis of whether or not it is achieving the objective. Taxes included in this report shall cover all state taxes collected by the Department of Revenue. Passed: Senate

SB 239: Requires parents to enroll a child within 10 days of moving into a district. Failure to do so would result in a fine between $50-500, 1-10 days incarceration or some combination thereof. Passed Senate, passed House Ed.

Key: HR- House Resolution, HB– House Bill, SR– Senate Resolution, SB– Senate Bill

Daily Reports with additional details on all the bills being tracked by GA PTA can be found on the Capitol Watch website under News

Karen Hallacy
GA PTA
Legislative Chair

AJC - Probe into school construction contracts continues

Probe into school construction contracts continues
By KRISTINA TORRES
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

It may be at least May before we learn the results of an internal review into allegations of irregularities with DeKalb County school construction contracts, according to a spokeswoman with the district attorney’s office.

The school system forwarded the review to the D.A., asking that a few things be looked into and whether a criminal investigation was warranted.

An investigator in the district attorney’s office is juggling the schools review along with several other cases, said D.A. spokeswoman Jada Hudspeth, and it may take until May to complete them all.

Hudspeth declined to give specifics about the schools review. It involves the office of Patricia Pope, the school system’s chief operating officer. In December, school system police officers and information systems employees examined records from Pope’s office.

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What is going on here? Is this Crawford Lewis' way to keep Pat Pope in check? Is it payback for Pope not taking one for the team when it came to Crawford's $20,000+ DCSS owned vehicle being sold to him for $5,000?

Hmmmm..., "school system forwarded the review to the D.A". Translation: Crawford Lewis forwarded it to the District Attorney.

Can someone please make sense of this mess?

DCSS Central Office - Let's Keep the Heat On!

One of the major themes of this fantastic blog Cere started has been the massive bloat and waste of the ever growing DCSS bureaucracy. Bureaucracies tend to propagate themselves, ever growing and ever hungry...sort of like Pac-Man (for you children of the '80s).

School enrollment is down, but a large bureaucracy makes up busy work and projects just to make it seem vital and irreplaceable (even though it's not). Taxpayers of tired of it. Parents are tired of it. I know DCSS teachers are tired of it. The huge staff of the Central Office eats up resources that should be directed inside the schools.

All those administrators have big phat salaries. They have a large number of support staff, blackberries, laptops, etc., etc. They all have pensions and sweet benefits. Too many administrators have take home cars.

And none of it improves actual student achievement (or test scores).

Being a DCSS administrator is such a sweet gig that many teachers and asst. principals become politcial animals. doing anything within their means to score an admin gig. In the better school systems (Ohio!), teachers go back and get a Master's degree in their subject matter, and get paid accordingly. In DCSS, its about playing political games at any cost to secure a desk job.

Taxpayers, parents and teachers are frustrated, and clearly want a DCSS Central Office that is lean and mean. Gwinnett's and Fulton's are much leaner and meaner than DeKalb's, and both of those counties are much more populated than DeKalb.

The bigger the bloated bureaucracy grows, the less nimble and responsive it is. It becomes less aware of the needs in the schools and more concerned with its own internal needs. Example: The superintendent's take home vehicle was less than two years old, and was allowed to purchased by the superintendent for a fraction of its blue book value. Where in America does a vehicle that cost over $20,000 become a $5,000 vehicle in a year and a half? Especially in this economy? Again, how does any piece of property over $20,000 become $5,000 is 18 months?
How many DCSS administrators have take home cars who actually need take home cars?

The Board of Education has been out to lunch over the past decade and a half, allowing the Central Office to explode, even as the student population is shrinking. And the student population should be even smaller than it actually is, but our Central Office has the worst checks and balances system of any school system in the state when it comes to residency. Talk to DCSS teachers and they'll estimate between 1500 to 3500 non-county resident children attending DCSS schools. Yeah, it sure helps with Title 1 and FRL, but it kills taxpayers in the long run, meaning more facilities needed, more facility needs, more staff needed, more pensions and benefits to pay, etc.

I've said it before, Crawford Lewis and Marcus Turk want all the Title 1 and FRL money they can get, and do not want a tough checks and balance system for student residency.

Some of the BOE members are sharp and seem to push for change. There are still some holdovers that want the status quo. And there's one who's more concerned about serving on the DeKalb Development Authority than focusing on academics and cutting the waste and bloat.

DCSS does not contract out services it could and should. We could get a higher quality of service and save money at the same time by contracting out much custodial, HVAC, grounds maintenance, athletic field maintenance, roofing, and much of informational technology support. The DCSS IT Dept. is one of its weakest and most underperforming. Administrative transfers under Crawford Lewis are out of control, with Lakeside being the chief example. What does it say about a system when its superintendent approves so many admin transfers, instead of advocating for students and families to stay at their neighborhood schools; why not be a leader and motivate parents to get involved and active with the school in their own backyards?

I've talked about DCSS with hundreds of people. Everyone supports our teachers and in school staff who interact daily with schoolchildren, such as the school nurses, school front desk staff, cafeteria staff, counselors and school resource officers. We know their value. Give them decent pay, benefits and even pensions for in school staff.

But when it comes to the administrators and their massive support staff (which includs IT and Sam Moss), things are out of control. There are way too many administrators. There are way too many middle managers. No one blinks an eye when the head of Internal Affairs is out of the office for over two months of the year as a state senator, because he has a big staff to cover for him.

All these administrators do not need the sweet pensions they are receiving. They should have 403b's (401k's for educators). They don't need such a huge support staff, dont need so many middle managers, don't need four staff members only assigned to HVAC but who still can't keep mold and mildew out of school HVAC systems, etc. Only a very small number of administrators and middle managers need take home vehicles. Not every administrator needs a laptop and Blackberry. Not every admin. ast. of a administrator needs a Blackberry. Heck, there is a number of surplus DCSS buildings, unused or leased out for sweetheart $1 a year give away leases. The more you look closely, the more waste & bloat you discover.

It's time to have a DCSS Central office that is lean and mean. That focuses on academics and the needs in the schools. That takes student residency seriously. That puts much more specific budget information online, so we know about change orders, so we know how many take home vehicles there are, so we know how every penny is spent. That works closely with DeKalb County to share facilities and programs, to make sure county planning & zoning is working hand in hand when locating schools, to even sharing some contracts to save taxpayers hundreds of thousands, like sharing the contract for supplying gas for county and DCSS vehicles.

Change is not going to come from within, especially when the current superintendent has been ingrained in the system and Central Office for way over thirty years, and until just recently, enabled and allowed 80 plus retired Central Office administrators to stay on as well paid "consultants" (yes 80+) while they received sweet pensions and bene's.

Since change will not come from within, keep the heat on your BOE members. Demand accountability. Demand transparency. Demand change. Talk about this to fellow parents. Tell them about this blog. Tell teachers about the blog, and for them to post suggestions for needed change. We can have a better school system, with better academics, with LEED certified, healthier school buildings, and we can have it paying lower school property taxes than we do now. But this can only happen with a lean and mean DCSS Central Office.

The time has come. Please keep the heat on.

No Child Left Behind -- Is It Out Of Control?

The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 is an update to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), the central federal law in pre-collegiate education. This act has the very admirable goal of improving the education of disadvantaged students. The act aims to hold states and schools more accountable for student progress. Some of the changes that cause discomfort to many educators, and joy to many parents of disadvantaged students include: Annual testing, which mandates schools to test annually in reading and math in grades 3-8 and at least once in science in elementary, middle and high school. A sample of 4th and 8th graders in each state must also take the National Assessment in reading and math every other year to provide a point of comparison for states. States must bring all students to the “proficient” level by the 2013-2014 school year. To that end, schools must meet state “adequate yearly progress” (AYP) targets. This is based on a formula spelled out in the law and must be met not only by the population at large, but by certain demographic subgroups. If a school receiving federal Title 1 funding (for low income areas) fails to meet the target two years in a row, it must be provided technical assistance and its students must be offered a choice of other public schools to attend. If the school fails three years in a row, they must be offered supplemental educational services such as private tutoring. Beyond that, a school could find themselves under outside correction by the state.

In addition to the testing requirements, the Act requires that teachers must be “highly qualified”, or certified and proficient, in each subject he or she teaches. All new teachers hired with Title 1 money must have at least an associate’s degree or higher and have passed an exam in their subject. The act also create a new grant program called Reading First to help state set up “scientific, research-based” reading programs in K-3. Priority is always given to high-poverty areas and includes a reading program for disadvantaged preschoolers.

These are fantastic initiatives in my opinion. If we are to continue to advance as a nation, we must capture all available talent. Many opportunities for societal contributions lie dormant in disadvantaged children in our cities and rural areas. Be it a medical genius or a really good, intelligent and reliable worker, we must uncover talent wherever it resides. Everyone will need to function as a contributing member of the United States economy if we want to maintain our economic status in the world. We are kidding ourselves if we do not recognize the critical importance of our inter-dependence.

However, there have been controversies around NCLB, as well as problems implementing the act in our county (Dekalb). I see these as growing pains that need major tweaking. Don’t throw out the proverbial “baby with the bath water.” The spirit of the law is respectable – especially so if you are the parent of a low-income minority, non-English speaker or special education student. The NCLB testing has peeled back the onion layer of overall passing school performance to reveal the fact that we are not equally educating sub-groups. As much as many of us have wearied of testing, the statistics are undeniable. Over and over, the white, bi-racial and Asian populations pass the threshold. Blacks, Hispanics and special education students do not. The 2008 testing data shows in black and red that in Dekalb, white and Asian students fair much better than blacks, Hispanics and special education students. And once again, DeKalb county as a system, failed to make Adequate Yearly Progress.

Why then, is the solution to offer transfers to the entire population of a school that failed to make AYP in a sub-category? What is now happening is that the highest achievers at “failing” schools with proactive parents are leaving their schools in droves. Many of these students were not members of the sub-category that did not meet AYP. This “brain-drain” virtually ensures that these schools will never make AYP. Add to that, the incredible emergency this creates on a receiving school – one middle school had to make room for over 250 new students after school started - the transfer solution is not the best first answer. What does seem like a good idea to me is to offer intense tutoring, class size reduction and mentoring to students in those failing groups. If that doesn’t cause improvement after a year, then offering a transfer might seem less reactionary. The law desperately needs some flexibility in application.

There are those who think that NCLB has an agenda to frustrate schools into a general dismantling of public education. I can’t see that as being reality, although, there are places such as Detroit where student populations are decreasing enormously with no reasons given. Still, there are many of us who believe in sticking in there and fighting the good fight to improve public education for everyone. Sadly, though, DeKalb does not seem to be making progress in our high schools. We continue to see a vast majority of our high schools unable to make AYP and the response by our administration has been to simply offer transfers to the few schools that do make AYP. But no one tracks these students after their transfer, so we really have no way of knowing if this solution is working. I would wage a guess that it's not, simply judging by the reduction in NCLB students in the freshman class at receiving schools vs the number of NCLB students who make it through to graduation at their school of choice. If it's not working, then we need to find a better method.

As a country, we need to be very thankful for Bill & Melinda Gates. They have hit the nail on the head in that we have an absolute crisis in many of our high schools. We have to drastically change the conventional pathway and pace to a high school diploma by recognizing that one size does not fit all. Vocational and technical schools have declined in favor of a cookie-cutter college prep diploma. At the same time drop out rates have soared. The Gates Foundation discovered that many drop-outs simply feel disconnected and bored at school. However, vocational schools seem to be able to capture many of these students' attention. I chatted with an auto mechanics teacher in Gwinnett County who told me that he had his students enthusiastically doing trigonometry, although they didn’t regard it as such – in their minds, they were problem-solving how to fix an engine.

Everyone has the right to the pursuit of happiness in this country. Offering an equal educational environment in which more people can land a job with a living wage and health care benefits for their family is part and parcel to the principles our country was founded on. It increases the quality of life for everyone. So let’s get on board and tweak the NCLB act until it can fully serve the purpose for which it was created – ensuring that even the most vulnerable in our country have an opportunity to succeed.

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PLAN TO ATTEND the No Child Left Behind Public School Choice Meeting and voice your opinions and concerns.

The meeting for Regions 1 & 2 schools - Dunwoody, Chamblee, Cross Keys, Lakeside, Druid Hills, Avondale and Tucker will be held on Monday - MARCH 23 at 6:30 PM at Peachtree Middle School, 4664 North Peachtree Road, Dunwoody, GA 30338.

Additional meetings include: TUESDAY MARCH 24, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at RONALD McNAIR, SR. HIGH SCHOOL and
TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2009 at 6:30 p.m. at REDAN HIGH SCHOOL.

I would suggest attending the Peachtree meeting AND one of the others in order to see how the same information is presented to very different groups as well as report back here as to the Q&A. FYI, within these regions (1, 2, 4 and 6) Chamblee, Cross Keys, Lakeside, Druid Hills, Stephenson Southwest DeKalb and Tucker DID make AYP in 2008. Dunwoody, Avondale, McNair, Cedar Grove, Redan and Stone Mountain DID NOT make AYP in 08.

We're Lucky, This is a Must Read

Tide turns against schools as foreclosures rise--

By Greg Toppo and Jack Gillum, USA TODAY
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — Way back when times were good — last April — builders showed up one day at Forest Grove Middle School and gutted a little-used classroom off the gym.
Four months and a half-million dollars later, they had transformed the space into a gleaming, bubbling mini marine biology laboratory, with five huge, blue plastic tanks for local marine life and a refrigerated tank that replicates the cold-water ecosystem off Maine.
For the first time, teacher Kevin Stinnette thought, his students could do hands-on lessons with cold-water species such as frilled anemones and Acadia hermit crabs.
Then the mortgage meltdown hit central Florida, and the crabs and anemones weren't the only ones hit with cold water. Here as elsewhere across the USA, hard times have forced schools to trim budgets, freeze hiring and, in a few cases, make substantial job cuts, raising doubts about the future of a range of programs, including the new marine lab.
Already, St. Lucie schools have lost $22 million in tax revenue from lower property values, and the district is staring at a 25% budget cut in the fall. It has frozen salaries and put central office employees on a four-day workweek. Enrollment is down only slightly but if things get much worse, schools here may cut athletics, after-school activities and summer school to the bone — or even consider a four-day week for students.

Read More: Its Bad
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-03-15-schoolforeclose_N.htm