Cross Keys HS Lands "A Big One" ...

Lately, I have refrained from using DCSW articles to "pump" my favorite high school. But today I cannot hold back - the students, families, faculty, Foundation tutors, and community at Cross Keys deserve to be called out today.

This school which is a composite of every "sub-group" that other school communities blame for their failures made AYP in the summer re-test. The Georgia Department of Education posted the results today on their site and I could not be more proud of our young people!

Amid all the noise of an election year, the swirl of the corruption at the Central Office, with the back drop of the RICO trial of our former superintendent and COO, and in spite of being isolated and shunned in many ways, these young people and their dedicated families, faculty and staff, all put left foot out, then right foot out and "made the grade."

This comes two days after the State Board of Regents caved into political pressure to ban some of these same children from our most competitive universities. Oddly, the Regents voted this way while at the same time saying there was no problem that required the policy (see CNN article).

Yesterday, I was at Woodward ES handing out accolades to the "Students of the Month." As I congratulated them I wondered if their older siblings' academic success inspired them. Then I wondered, "Will they stay motivated to learn when they see their older siblings further isolated by the new Regents' policy." It was bitter sweet to watch the pride of these little children juxtaposed against the obstacles to education some of them will face.

We all have learned that AYP is not necessarily "all that," but as the designated cheerleader for our Cross Keys area young people who have overcome so much I have to say loudly ..."BOOYAH!"

Run for Cover? I plan to fight for both the Students and the fine Teachers of DeKalb County.

Reposted with permission from John Heneghan's Dunwoody blog.


I was going to post (a simple piece about an exhibit at Spruill Arts Center called "Run for Cover") but the name of the exhibit in relationship to the DeKalb County School System news coming out, just touched me on so many levels.

Like all governmental budgets that depend on property taxes the DeKalb County School System is facing financial crisis, yet we have school board members already saying publicly that they are in favor of tax increases along with cuts in teacher pay vs deep cuts in administrative overhead.

DeKalb County pre-kindergarten classes, magnet schools and art courses will be slashed and teachers will likely see another pay cut to offset a $56 million deficit in the school system. The only other option is to raise property taxes, DeKalb Superintendent Crawford Lewis said Wednesday. Either way, students, teachers and administrators will feel the pinch next year.

The AJC also quotes board member, Eugene Walker who suggested the board raise property taxes 2 mills, which would raise the taxes of a $200,000 homeowner’s tax bill by about $135 more a year.

I read a comment on the DeKalb County School Watch Blog where a resident matter of factly stated that his decision had been made, that he is now going to move out of DeKalb vs. put up with the degradation of the school system, paying higher taxes that he can not afford, for it to be wasted on administrative bloat.

I don't know about you but as a father of three children in the DeKalb County School System, I truely respect my children's teachers, they work hard and are dedicated to the education of my children, sometimes it seems in spite of the obstacles placed upon them by the current administration. Unlike that person who is ready to move out of DeKalb, we the residents of DeKalb County need to stay and fight for quality education for our children and support the teachers who educate them.

I refuse to do differently and if you feel the same I would ask you stay engaged in the process, stay educated on what is happening in DeKalb and be ready to fill the auditorium of Peachtree Charter Middle School on Monday March 1st for the DeKalb County School Board work session where budget alternatives will most likely be discussed.

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Thanks, John. This post is very well said. Folks, I also encourage you to read John's post on your property tax bill. Click here.

This post has a clickable link (when you click the words 'stay engaged' near the end of the post) that will generate an email ready to go to the board. Add your own comments and send it off. He's way more technical than me, and since I don't know how to make that work go to John's blog and click away.

So, Shayna was right!

Fulton educators are waffling on the new math. As reported recently in NorthFulton.com, "It’s out with the new and in with the old for 2010 as the Fulton County School System prepares to dump the controversial math curriculum in favor of back-to-the-basics traditional math."

Shayna kindly wrote an article for this blog back in July, called, "All About Math" in which she made an incredibly cogent argument for holding off on the wholesale implementation of the new Georgia math curriculum. Shayna researched the topic diligently and came to the conclusion that, while the curriculum is a good one at it's core, it is very difficult to teach and requires an incredible amount of teacher training. She further noted that although Cobb and Gwinnett chose to layer the new curriculum over the old a piece at a time, DeKalb instead chose to go in "whole hog". Her findings were very interesting and although she shared a copy of her article with each board member and appealed to them as a speaker at a board meeting, the program was implemented - "all in" - anyway.

Now comes Fulton County, reporting, "“While students were certainly challenged with [the new standards], the way of teaching with the discovery or inquiry method was confusing to some students, teachers and parents,” said Loe.

The system also began to see fewer students being accelerated or advanced, and students not working to their full potential, noted Loe. More significantly, high school math teachers began seeing students who lacked basic computation skills and math scores on nationally-normed tests began flat-lining or dropping."

Fulton leaders also tell us, "In coming to the decision to dump Investigations and Connections, Loe and her staff looked at the results of a recent book which summarized 50,000 studies of student achievement to determine which practices actually correlate to higher achievement. What the study found was direct instruction far exceeded results over inquiry-based learning."

This could be bad. Are there math teachers out there or parents who would like to share their experiences with DeKalb's new math? We really need to keep our eyes on the math ball -- even as our administration continues to distract us with all kinds of irrelevant emergencies.

The Latest Update on the Sembler Proposal for a Tax Abatement

Sembler Update from Commissioner Gannon
From Ashford Alliance Community Organization

"As you may be aware, Development Authorities are independent entities created by the state and The Board of Commissioners does not have any say in the decisions made by the Development Authority. There is litigation pending regarding the role of the public in some aspects of Development Authority incentives, but not this kind of transaction known as a PILOT bond. PILOT is short for "payments in lieu of taxes." In this deal, Sembler will convey to the Development Authority ownership of large portions of its mixed-use Town Brookhaven project. The Development Authority will float bonds to finish construction of the project. The Development Authority also will lease the project back to Sembler. Under this lease, Sembler will make rent payments to the Authority sufficient to repay the principal and interest on the bonds. Bond funds also could be used to refinance Sembler's existing loans for the project at a more favorable interest rate. Commissioner Gannon does not support tax incentives for this property and encourages you to attend the Development Authority meetings so that they can be aware of the public sentiment. The next meeting is tentatively scheduled for June 18, 2009 at 8:00 AM. You may learn more about the Development Authority on the DeKalb County website at www.yourdekalb.com under Departments then Economic Development. Also, State Representative Mike Jacobs held a town hall meeting on the subject last evening."

Mike Jacobs Reports on Sembler's Proposal
Partially quoted from Mike's District 80 Website

"Thank you to everyone who responded to my e-mail message last week regarding the Sembler tax abatement proposal. I intend to reply to each of your messages personally, although that will take some time.

Most responded in opposition to the tax abatement. A handful supported it.

This is not about “standing in the way of progress,” as a couple of people characterized it. It’s about transparency and accountability in the way our county and school taxes are managed. It’s also about a very serious and real concern that throwing open the barn doors to giving property tax abatements to developers whose projects are caught in the doldrums of the real estate market ultimately will place upward pressure on the tax burden of DeKalb County citizens. ...

EUGENE WALKER’S CONFLICT OF INTEREST

I also want to clarify that I do not blame Sembler for looking after its business interests.

I do, however, believe that Gene “$18K” Walker should be made to understand the intractable conflict of interest between his dual service as Chairman of the DeKalb Development Authority and as a member of the DeKalb County Board of Education.

The public should call or e-mail every other member of the Board of Education and ask them to insist that Dr. Walker allow them to vote on whether the Sembler tax abatement will happen.

Word is spreading that CEO Burrell Ellis may insist that the Board of Commissioners be given the right to vote on the Sembler tax abatement proposal. He could make this happen because he appoints the members of the Development Authority.

Shouldn’t the Board of Education have that same right? After all, the school system could stand to lose more property tax revenues than the county if these tax abatements are allowed to go forward.

Both the Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners should have the right to vote on the Sembler proposal. If Dr. Walker disagrees with that, then he should have to answer to his colleagues on the Board of Education for his refusal to let them vote. He has sufficient power and influence over the affairs of the Development Authority to hold up the tax abatement until the Board of Education weighs in.

You can make that happen. Please contact the members of the Board of Education and ask them to ask Dr. Walker to let them vote.

You can find their contact information at the Board of Education Website."

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In fairness, Sembler rep Jeff Fuqua has a rebuttal in the AJC Letters to the Editor today in which he states that the AJC, "created a distorted and incomplete picture of our efforts to negotiate with the DeKalb Development Authority a tax abatement for part of our Brookhaven property. Beginning with a misleading headline and using loaded words and strident and alarmist rhetoric, the story created an erroneous and extraordinarily unfair impression of our proposal that has done a great disservice to Sembler, to DeKalb and to your readers. Far from seeking a “free ride,” as your article virtually snarls, Sembler is seeking support for a project that represents a $400 million investment in DeKalb and which, even with limited development, come January 2010 will pay DeKalb over three times more in property taxes than the property paid prior to Sembler’s involvement (from $400,000 up to $1.4 million)."

Why is the DeKalb Marine High School only for Title One Students? Why Did the Marine Who Spoke at the End of the Public Hearing Say What He Did?

I am excited about the DeKalb County Marine High School being offered as an option to students in DeKalb County. I am glad to see DeKalb County Schools go outside the box looking for ways to help our students be as successful as possible as adults. However, why is this program currently only being offered to students who are Title 1 students? This seems a little discriminatory to students of higher incomes and abilities who might benefit from the structure of a marine high school. Why are so many of our choice schools having so many stipulations in order to be accepted to attend? I am hopeful this is due to the request of the Marines instead of the DeKalb County School Board. It would appear that so much money is being spent on optional schools in DeKalb County with so many stipulations for acceptance that it makes me a little concerned about the direction public education is going. Should public school option schools be available to all students in DeKalb regardless of their race, income, religion, disability, ability? What do you think?

I was extremely offended by the comments at the Heritage Center hearing by the marine who accused the white area in the north side of the county not wanting the Title 1 students to be served in the military school at Heritage. As a member of the Lakeside Community, I did not perceive that the concerns of the community had anything to do with the Title 1 students being served at Heritage. In fact, this was news to our community when Dr. Crawford told us that the Marine HS would be open to Title 1 Students only. The Lakeside/Heritage Community was not even aware of this fact so this could not be the reason for all the concern in the community. It had to do with the traffic and extra congestion of two high schools within .6 of a mile. The community was concerned with parking for the high school, and the park next to the school that is used by the entire community. Anyone who attended the hearing was made extremely aware of the lack of parking space for citizens to park. You had to park ½ to 1 mile away to get a parking place to attend the hearing at Heritage.

For me personally it had to do with placing the special needs students in a better economic situation for the county. It is true that many of the students at Heritage need to be served in self-contained classrooms, as their needs due to the medical fragile situation would best be meet in a self-contained classroom but that does not mean that these classrooms have to be in a separate facility. We have many high schools and middle schools in the county that have room for these children and their could be such a benefit from allowing regular education high school and middle school students to have mentorship’s to work with these special needs children. There would appear to be such a benefit to both the special needs students and the regular education students. I do not like to see these students served in a separate facility from regular education students. I questions why some of the overcrowded grade schools like Oak Grove even could not be moved to Heritage and make Heritage more like Coralwood by serving regular education students and special needs students. They would not have to be served even in the same classrooms, but moving some of the overcrowded students from Oak Grove to Heritage would make sense to me.

I also was concerned that concerned citizens about the Military High Schools made most of the meeting comments. Parents of children, who attended Heritage, did not have sufficient opportunities to be heard because of the limit of time for the hearing. Many of the special needs parents appeared very upset when they were not allowed time to speak due to the concerns of the location of the Military High School. What do you think about the situation regarding the Marine High School location and where do you think the special needs students at Heritage need to be served?

One of These Things is Not Like the Other ...

With apologies to the Children's Workshop, I offer to the readers of this blog a Sesame Street styled test ...

Using the visual to the left, can you spot the High School feeder pattern that is not like the others? I have shown this map to folks who have no experience with DCSS or the public schools in general and they all get it right. It is elementary and it is the yellow one.

During the last 20 years, a perfect storm of piecemeal zoning decisions by DeKalb County, of backroom redistricting by DeKalb County School System, and of private bigotry by some has created the unnaturally elongated and twisting Cross Keys feeder pattern any viewer can observe on the System's map pictured here.

This death by a thousand cuts has been devastating to the neighborhoods in my area as more and more parents move out of the district in search of public education options. This long-growing pressure on my neighborhood school has been exacerbated by what I call "the last man out" syndrome.

As Cross Keys and its supporting schools became more and more isolated, area families saw their friends and neighbors leaving the System or even the district in search of public education. No one wants to be "the last man out" in what has been a failing district. So, all the families I know in my area are in a constant state of anxiety about the education options for their children.

So what now? Who shall we blame? Should we persecute or prosecute them? Sorry to disappoint you but I am not interested in blame or retribution-what I want to see is corrective action. I challenge the leadership in DCSS and within every department of DeKalb County Government to ask themselves what they can do to reverse the years of bad decisions made in our area. I am challenging the members of my neighborhood and surrounding neighborhoods to do the same.

The trouble is, people need to get clear signals from their public officials. The upcoming renovation of Cross Keys is a good thing but dressing up the building is not enough. Rumors about the future sale or demolition of Cross Keys persist. Private and public sector leaders must step up and articulate a vision for the future of Cross Keys that is comprehensive and inspiring to parents and homeowners in the community to bring them back on board.

Who will speak with me for Cross Keys High School's future? I think this school that was once a Georgia School of Excellence can be restored to excellence. I think the Brookhaven community can be reconnected with its natural community high school at Cross Keys. I think our elected and appointed public officials have the ability to enable these things if they choose to do so.

Do they have the will?

Kim Ellis Gokce
President, HillsDale Neighborhood Association
Sponsor, Community Radar civic news sharing