Tag Archives: Education

Senate Farm Bill adds Rural Gigabit Amendment

The U.S. Senate just adopted an amendment to invest in gigabit (1,000 megabit per second) rural broadband networks. Our local leaders need to lobby for the House to pass this, if they are serious about fast affordable Internet service for everyone here. Senator Leahy’s tiny Vermont, with the population of a single Congressional district, is already well along towards gigabit Internet. Our three House members can help get south Georgia on the road to better jobs, education, and health care through better Internet service.

Jennifer Reading wrote today for WCAX, Leahy’s high-speed internet amendment passes,

What I want to make sure is that a rural area can compete the same way an urban area can. It’s actually the argument, the debate that went on before I was even born about whether you had rural electricity, rural telephone or not and if we hadn’t done that much of this country would be a wasteland,” said Sen. Leahy.

Don’t we want that, too?

Continue reading →

Tina Anderson new President of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College

From Moultrie to Valdosta, Dr. Tina Anderson unanimously appointed new Wiregrass Tech President.

Wiregrass Tech PR of 6 June 2013, Commissioner Jackson Appoints Dr. Tina Anderson to be the Next President of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College

Atlanta — Commissioner Ron Jackson today informed the state board that oversees the Technical College System of Georgia that Dr. Tina Anderson, who is currently the president of Moultrie Technical College, is his choice to become the next president of Wiregrass Georgia Technical College in Valdosta.

Board Member Ben Copeland of Valdosta made the motion to approve the appointment of Anderson to the position, and the full board voted unanimously in favor of the selection. The announcement and vote were made during the board’s monthly meeting at the TCSG headquarters in Atlanta.

Anderson will move into her new position at Wiregrass Georgia Technical College on July 1. She will replace Dr. Ray Perren, who left the college in May to become president of another TCSG college, Lanier Technical College in Oakwood, Georgia.

Jackson told the board members Continue reading →

Judge rules against school-to-prison pipeline in Mississippi

It’s a good start. Next: stop locking so many people up in general. It costs far less to educate than to incarcerate, and educated children can contribute to society, instead of being a drain on resources.

Brentin Mock wrote for ColorLines Friday, Good News in Mississippi: School-To-Prison Pipeline Closes,

The sealing of the school-to-prison pipeline in Meridian, Miss. has officially started after a U.S. District Court judge approved what the Department of Justice is calling “a landmark consent decree” that features a “far-reaching plan to reform discipline practices … that unlawfully channel black students out of their classrooms and, too often, into the criminal justice system.

In March, the Justice Department reached agreement Continue reading →

Library Board this afternoon @ SGLB 2013-05-21

1PM-3PM today, according to the VDT calendar. Who’s running it now that Kay Harris isn’t chair? And will whoever it is welcome video cameras?

The South Georgia Regional Library Board of Trustees will be meeting Tuesday, March 19 at 1PM in the Folsom Room of the Valdosta-Lowndes County Public Library to conduct regular business.The meeting is open to the public and all are welcome to attend. For more information call 333.0086.

Yes, that says March, but the calendar entry says May 21, today. And it says “open to the public and all are welcome to attend”. But are all welcome to record? Or do all have to stay inside an 8×4 foot blue rectangle next to a loud air cleaner? Was that just Kay Harris’ policy and will it change now that she has resigned as chair and from the board?

If there’s anything about this meeting on the library’s website, I can’t find it.

-jsq

Give back what I’ve had for 37 years –Lamar Clements @ LCC 2013-05-14

A Lowndes County resident asked for school bus safety and his land back that the county took; this was in the Lowndes County Commission Regular Session Tuesday:

I was asked to do this for the benefit of our community. Lamar Clements is my name, and my wife Winona. We live at 5138 Coppage Road, out in Hahira. So you’d know, we’re not new residents out there. We’ve lived there 37 years. We’ve seen a lot of change.
My concern is the corner of Coppage Road and Griffin Road. I know Mike Fletcher has been recently, visited that location. I want to report that I have seen personally as a resident; I’ve seen two county school buses that could have been a fatal accident because of the structure around it. My concern, it needs to be eliminated; that will, bottom line save lives.
Secondly, I live on the corner, and the county has progressively moved the road over to the west, which is literally taking my some of my yard. All I ask is: give back what I’ve had for 37 years. And for goodness sake, when I saw those two school buses that makes a chill go down your spine when you’ve got that many children in danger.
So it’s in good hands. You guys know what to do. Go for it. Continue reading →

Valdosta Vimeo

I've been nagging Valdosta for years about putting some of their cable TV station content on the web. Turns out they are already doing some of that, which is a step towards acting like a modern metropolitan area. Received Wednesday via Tim Carroll; I added the links and the [clarification].

From: Sementha Mathews
Sent: Wednesday, March 13, 2013 11:48 AM
To: Tim Carroll
Subject: RE: "The rest of the story"
Councilman Carroll,

Thank you for the recent phone call. As a result, I will research the Austin, Tx media practices to see if they can be implemented in any way here at Metro 17. We used to include a council wrap segment in each show, and I'll ask Shemeeka [Johnson, Valdosta Channel 17 Media Coordinator] why we took that out. But we can easily add that back in.

City of Austin posts Continue reading →

Videos: Solar Dublin High School groundbreaking @ DHS Solar 2013-03-11

Groundbreaking for solar power to save Dublin High 40%, thus reducing teacher furloughs, financed by municipal bonds, made possible by cooperation among a wide range of government officials, private companies, and individuals: that was the groundbreaking story in Dublin, Laurens County, yesterday, videod by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE.

Dublin City Schools are willing to try something new, and that’s why they were groundbreaking, said Chuck Ledbetter, Superintendent, yesterday. He recognized members present of the Dublin City Council, the Laurens County Commission, the Dublin-Laurens Development Authority, and state representative Matt Hatchett, and Public Service Commissioner Bubba McDonald. Ledbetter’s theme,

Everybody worked together to make this happen.

was echoed over and over by many other speakers. What they worked for was economic help for Dublin City Schools through solar power, financed by municipal bonds.

The Mayor of Dublin, Phil Best added to the list Continue reading →

Circular wastewater firing squad continues

The VDT's Sunday front page was covered with wastewater stories, continuing the circular firing squad of the local powers that be. Meanwhile in Dublin, GA, they're breaking ground for solar panels at the local high school, using a bond financing model that we could use here, if local leaders would look up.

In addition to some detail about the city's FEMA application and following up on flooded yards, the VDT followed up on its EPD and EPA scrutiny story with one saying City received help from EPD to keep EPA away. It's good the VDT is covering these issues, but it's still leaving out important parts of the local water story.

Apparently firing back at Thursday's Valdosta City Council session, perhaps especially Robert Yost's very pointed criticisms of the VDT, the VDT concluded its rather rich Sunday editoral:

City leaders, please, no more of the blame game. The citizens of this community are imploring you to just accept responsibility and fix it.

Yet the VDT has spent the last week blaming the city, and has accepted no responsibility for its own role, or that of its editor, Kay Harris, in the recent loss of the SPLOST referendum that would have further funded wastewater work in Valdosta.

Now, I agree with the VDT that Continue reading →

Solar Dublin High School groundbreaking tomorrow

Dublin gets the jump on the rest of Georgia again: Dublin High School will get a megawatt of solar electricity through a lease agreement with a private company using local government bonds to get around Georgia’s special financing problem.

Kenny Burgamy reported for for 13wmaz.com Thursday, Solar Plant To Be Located at Dublin High,

Dublin High School of Dublin City Schools will soon implement 1 megawatt of solar energy.

The 4,000 panel solar power plant will be the largest in Central Georgia and is expected to save the school 40 percent in energy costs.

Dublin City Schools Superintendent Chuck Ledbetter told 13WMAZ, “The facility will be built and owned by private business and the school system will lease the solar power plant, saving us money in energy costs.”

The original plan was developed more than 15-months ago by German based MAGE SOLAR, which has a plant located in Laurens County.

The story has been carried by GPB by Athens Banner-Herald via AP.

This installation is similar to but slightly different from Continue reading →

Azalea Festival in Drexel Park, Valdosta, GA 2103-03-09

Men, women, children, babies in strollers, old folks with walkers, dogs, and a large yellow chicken in a time-lapse movie from the wildlife camera Gretchen set up at the Thirteenth Annual Azalea Festival yesterday, plus other videos and stills, and WCTV.

Here’s a video playlist:

Here’s a flickr slideshow: