Tag Archives: consolidation

If I were Superintendent —Sam Allen

Seen on the FVCS facebook page, dated 6 October 2011. -jsq
If I were Superintendent in the Lowndes County School System on November 9, 2011 and I had 7700 additional students and a potential $10 Million Deficit this would be my starting list:

Winners:

  • Bus Drivers (ALL – NO supervisors, trainers or mechanics)
  • Lunchroom Staff (Until we decide which schools to close)
  • Custodial Staff (Until we decide which schools to close – no supervisor)
  • Media Specialists (Until we decide which schools to close – then I would move you down to the Losers section)
  • 2 Maintenance Workers (Heating/Air – no supervisor)
  • Academic Teachers (with good evaluations) – NOT ALL because I would raise teacher class size to the max and ask for a waiver for an additional child or two 1 Asst. Superintendent
  • 2 Technology support staff (no Supervisors)
  • School Secty (Until we decide which schools to close)
  • 1 Finance staff person (Payroll)
  • Principals (Until we decide which schools to close – except Southeast, will not rebuild)

Losers:

  • Teachers (especially ones that do not have tenure)
  • Assistant Principals (at Elementary Schools that have more than one)
  • Media Specialists (Until we decide which schools to close)
  • 3 Curriculum Directors at Central Office
  • Technology Supervisor
  • Special Education Director
  • 2 Assistant Superintendents
  • Director of ESPLOST Projects
  • Superintendent
  • All Central Office Support Staff
  • Food Service Director and Staff
  • Ticket Manager
  • Community Relations Director
  • 1 Social Worker
  • VECA Staff (ALL)
  • Pinevale Learning Center Staff (ALL)
  • Personnel Director and Staff
  • Title I Director and Staff
  • Director of Testing
  • Mail Courier
  • Vocational Teachers due to change in direction (Not All)
  • Elective Teachers (Some)
  • Parent Involvement Coordinators (Title I $ will be cut)
  • Instructional Supervisors
  • Para Educators (except for Special Education)
  • Valdosta Police Department Dare Officers/SRO’s and Football Games (taken over by the County if funding is available)
  • 1 Band Director at VHS – student fees will increase and school will not furnish as many instruments
  • Performing Arts Center Mgr. – public will be charged a higher costs to use
  • Director of Purchasing and Staff
  • 1 School Psychologist
  • 9 Board of Education Members
  • 2 @ Asst Principals at VMS and JLN
  • 2 Asst Principals at VHS
  • No Swim Team staff
  • IB Teachers would be relocated if positions are available
  • 5 Furlough days for the first year
  • School Board Attorney

School Closing:

  • Southeast
  • Pinevale Learning Center
  • VECA
  • JL Lomax ???
  • Parker Mathis
  • Old Pine Grove
  • Moulton- Branch ????

Sell:

  • Bazemore Hyder Stadium and Central Office to VSU at Fair Market Value – Wildcat Museum would be housed at the Historical Society
  • Southeast School
  • VECA to VSU at Fair Market Value
  • Pinevale Learning Center
Now it took me about 15 minutes to come up with this list and it’s not near what my actually happen during the 2011-12 school year if we don’t get people out to vote against this misguided attempt to dismantle our schools. If I didn’t include you don’t thank for one second that you are safe. Remember I didn’t hire you and I don’t owe you anything, so pay your bills on time and keep your credit ratings high because you may need to rent for a while.

-Samuel Allen, Superintendent Emeritus

The promises that are impossible —Barbara Stratton

Received 6 October 2011 on LCBOE did its homework about consolidation. -jsq
CUEE has staked their efforts on catch phrases & false promises that look & sound good. All of their info is at best a half truth. The promises that are imposible to keep are lies. I was raised believing a promise broken is a truth untold, which is a lie.

Unfortunately this tactic will work for today’s lazy voters who won’t even take the time to go to a website where the true facts are posted much less do their own research. Surely don’t ask them to leave the comfort of their homes & entertainment & personal addictions to attend any public meetings on either side when they should be visiting both sides at least once. They are part of the convenient idiot masses that facilitate take overs by the clever greedy for money & power few.

Both school boards [VBOE, LCBOE] and their supporters have done a great job of researching to produce true evidence that dissolves all the CUEE false rhetoric & print.

We cannot assume that truth will prevail because it is much easier to believe the fast sell that requires no personal effort. CUEE is banking on this. Most of the school consolidations that have occurred had many that were shocked when they passed because they did not account for the money/power ruses of the facilitators working so well with the lazy voter public. Many will not even show up claiming they have no stake since they have no children in either system. They are too lazy to check the researched facts to see they will be paying higher taxes for a handicapped unified system.

-Barbara Stratton

Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidation

Mayor Sonny Vickers said he thought it was important for children and grandchildren and proper for the City Council to take a stand against school consolidation, and City Manager Larry Hanson read the statement (transcript appended).

For:
City Council District 1 - James Wright
James Wright
District 1

City Council District 3 - Hoke Hampton
Hoke Hampton
District 3

City Council District 4 - Alvin Payton Jr.
Alvin Payton
District 4

City Council At Large - Ben Norton
Ben Norton
At Large

Didn’t Have
to Vote:
Valdosta Mayor - Sonny Vickers
Sonny Vickers
Mayor
Against:
City Council District 6 - Robert Yost
Robert Yost
District 6

City Council District 5 - Tim Carroll
Tim Carroll
District 5

Missing:
City Council District 2 - Deidra A. White
Deidra White
District 2
After very brief discussion, the vote was 4 for (James Wright of District 1, Hoke Hampton of District 3, Alvin Payton of District 4, and Ben Norton At Large) and 2 against (Robert Yost of District 6 and Tim Carroll of District 5).

That means Ben Norton changed his vote since since their last non-binding vote related to school consolidation. (Nonbinding because they didn’t have any authority to decide whether the referendum went on the ballot or not.) Council Deidra White of District 2 was absent throughout the meeting, which I find rather odd since she seemed quite aware when I spoke to her the previous day that this vote was going to occur. Back in August she voted against putting the referendum on the ballot. Yes, I know the motion was not exactly the same, so the votes are not exactly comparable. In any case, this time there was no tie and thus no need for the (new) mayor to break a tie.

Here’s the video:


Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidationo
education, consolidation, resolution,
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 October 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Here’s the statement transcribed as accurately as I could from the video: Continue reading →

Chattanooga deja vu —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on How did we get here? apparently referring to Barbara Stratton’s comment since reposted as Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz. -jsq
After reading the Ed Weekly article, [slightly earlier version quoted here, referred to here. -jsq] I was struck by a very strong dejavu feeling. I checked the date twice and only to realize ( twice) that this consolidation went on more than 15 years ago.

The city schools were in bad shape financially and educationally in Chatnooga city. That is the major difference with our situation here. As much as some want you to believe that Valdosta city schools are not doing well, there are many that can point to the school improvement plan and it being recognized as one of the best in the state, or other notable achievements that differ front the view of VCS propagated by the folks on CUEE.

Other than that we are looking at the same issues; racial segregation, neighborhood schools, professional development monies in the different district, curriculum changes, busing to attain integration requirements, and the concerns about redistricting and moving kids to other schools.

Again this was 15 years ago, yet we are now faced with the same issues. At the time of the article consolidation had passed (19k to 21k). Teachers and parents Interviewed expressed concern about the poor kids of the city not getting a fair shake because the county (largely white) schools had little connection to the issues of the city kids. We would be faced with that just on a smaller scale.

The other strange likeness to this 15 year old consolidation is that Steve Prigozhy seems to have some very vague notions of school reform today that he did back then. These notions have been found to be less than successful in the ensuing 15 years.

Distancing himself from his failures does not make him a success at anything but manipulation of facts. The education of my children is not going to be reformed by a man that spins the truth and panders to the wealthy.

Thank you for sharing the Edweekly article.

-Karen Noll

Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz —Barbara Stratton

Received 3 October on How did we get here? -jsq
Very well said JC.

On Thursday 9/29/11 CUEE called a special meeting of their Education Task Force at the City Hall Annex. Reading on and between the lines of the VDT article it appears the new, more agressive tactic is to call into question the conduct and accountability for goverance of education of the Valdosta City Board of Education. Under the leadership of Steve Prigohzy they seem to be heading toward usurping this goverance from the elected school boards to another entity they can control. This is hauntingly familiar if you read an article titled Tennessee Waltz from the Education Week Teacher.

http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1995/10/01/02tenn.h07.html
(If you go to the Education Week Teacher website it will say the Tennesse Waltz article is only available to registered guests, but registration is free.)

Leadership for the post consolidation planning was forcibly taken from the county superintendent and given to the Public Education Foundation of Chattanooga, TN, which was headed by CUEE’s own Steven H. Prigohzy. His specialty seems to be powering school consolidations and overseeing the resulting planning which does little to improve the academic or financial conditions of the public schools (actually these get worse). It does however provide the perfect climate for pulling grant monies to establish the magnet schools he also specializes in.

-Barbara Stratton

The Tennessee Waltz article seems to be a slightly later and slightly revised version of the article I referenced in Steve Prigohzy, guru of Chattanooga-Hamilton Co. school consolidation, as quoted recently by Smart Memphis.

-jsq

And now an educational idea from Shakira

Belief based on evidence! About something that deals with the underlying local educational problem here: poverty. From her speech yesterday at the White House:
It is my belief and its also been demonstrated that if we provide early childhood education to Latino children it would take less than a decade to reap the benefits since investment in early education is proven to generate the fastest returns to the state.

With more ECD programs there will be less Latino students being held back, less dropouts and less crime involving school-age children; and they will be more productive individuals to society.

Continue reading →

I can’t sit back without responding with facts —Etta Mims

Received 4 Oct 2011. -jsq
Greed is an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods with the intention to keep it for one’s self. Greed is inappropriate expectation. However, greed is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and pursuit of wealth, status, and power. —Wikipedia
We would like to think that our community “leaders” are not full of pride and greed, but please listen closely:
  • The CUEE Board did NOT meet with both school boards prior to sending the petition around town.
  • Troup County Schools have not met AYP in 8 years.
  • Tennessee’s Hamilton County system, the entire district, is currently high priority. This means they have had two years of bad results. This is the school used in CUEE’s original study.
  • CUEE’s expert Steve Prigohzy said,
    "If you believe in the end that running one system is cheaper than running two school systems. If in the end you are going to cast a vote for a single system because you think it would save money, I wouldn’t cast my vote I do not think it will save money."
  • If consolidation passes, there will be only 7 Board Members representing almost 20,000 students.
Continue reading →

Consolidation: A Financial Puzzle —Dr. Troy Davis @ LCBOE 4 October 2011

Dr. Troy Davis spelled out where we are financially in the school systems, and what consolidation would do to that: it would raise taxes and reduce services.

He took CUEE’s own figures for how much more consolidation would require to be spent per each Valdosta City school student, and demonstrated that not only would that require raising taxes for both Valdosta and Lowndes County residents to near the state-capped maximum of 21 mils, but even then there is no way enough tax revenue would be generated to pay for all the things CUEE proposes to do after consolidation, and probably not even enough taxes to continue employing all the teachers currently employed by the two school systems. Oh, plus consolidation would lose state and federal grant money by increasing the composite school system size, so the local taxpayers would have to make up that slack, too.

Here are his slides.

Here is a playlist.

-jsq

School Consolidation Statement tonight at Valdosta City Council

There are a bunch of changes to the Comprehensive Plan and the Land Development Regulations (LDR) that people ought to pay attention to, scheduled for tonight’s Valdosta City Council (VCC) meeting. But the one many people are going to see is this one:
6.a) Consideration of a Position Statement on School Consolidation.
Some people are confused, because VCC has no formal authority over any school system. They didn’t have any formal authority to decide whether to put the school referendum on the ballot, either. According to the Lowndes County Board of Elections, once Continue reading →

We educators were ignored back then —John Wayne Baxter

Received today on LCBOE did its homework about consolidation. -jsq
Hey John, I appreciate your summary of the latest meeting on consolidation. I was on the Chamber sponsored consolidation committee back in 1993-94. The same folks pushing the effort then are pushing it now. Back then, nothing about improving education was ever mentioned; it was all about banking and real estate. Only two educators back then were on the committee, the two superintendents from the school systems, and we were never asked our opinions on anything. We were totally ignored.

Yes, we educators were ingored back then and there is no doubt in my mind that this group pushing for consolidation is ignoring opinions of educators now. I believe the “dollar bill” mentality of a handful of folks is the driving force behind this effort, and I don’t mean the tax payers. Of course, this is just my opinion; I could be wrong.

We have two excellent school systems now in one county. Here is the method that I propose for a merger: if and when one of our school systems gets to a point where it cannot provide quality education for it’s students, let that school system’s school board approach the other school board and begin discussions on consolidation or some other remedy. Why should some bank or real estate company be the driving force behind consolidation. Maybe kids should be put ahead of lining the pockets of a few business owners. And the most important thing to remember about this action is: once Valdosta gives up the charter for it’s school system, it’s over and done with; good or bad, it’s over; Valdosta can never get it back. Think about that!

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-jsq