I yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
I didn’t catch his name, but he David Mullis talked about his children and said:
All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.
…
The special ed program they have here is second to none.
Then he got to the night’s topic:
When I look at these things when people talk about consolidation,
I have to ask the question:
why do they want to consolidate two school systems?
The things that they say sound good.
I think everything they say would be agreab
What do they mean by them?
And I have a little bit of a problem;
whenever somebody wants to combine two groups together,
it almost looks like they want to control the whole.
And this little bombshell:
It seems like the group that is most pushing this thing
is referring to the Tennessee Hamilton County system,
which if you read their site, sounds like their statistics are good
and everything’s working good.
Except that there’s some data that came out a month ago
that says that they are,
the first time, the entire district is high priority.
…
That means they had two years of bad results.
Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
If “unification” is about education, where was CUEE at the
last two days’ school board meetings?
Maybe we’ll see CUEE at some of
the three forums VBOE is organizing.
Maybe they’ll address issues such as
consolidation producing no improvement in academic achievement,
consolidation causing increased taxpayer expense,
and the need for any consolidation proposal to come from
educators and parents, and to be voted on by all the citizens
in the affected school districts;
you know, the issues
LCBOE just called them on.
Craig Cardella said his wife Anne
was a current Valdosta City Schools teacher and former Teacher of the year,
and he was a former city manager who had done community development all his life.
I can tell you without doubt this is the most damaging useless thing
I’ve seen proposed in many many years.
This will do more damage to our community than just about anything I can think of
short of a hurricane running through the middle of town.
It will damage both the county and the city school systems severely.
It will hinder the growth of the education of our children.
It will cause chaos among the city and county school staffs,
both of which are like this, because a lot of times they’re
the same people.
The most damaging useless thing —Craig Cardell @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
More transcription; he’s just getting to the best parts:
Continue reading →
This is truly a time for educators, and the families of students in our
communities’ schools to celebrate the leadership that the BOEs have shown.
That said, I would like to commend the LCBOE on the strength of
their resolution.
They not only state clearly that consolidating the schools
would not increase in academic achievement, but a large tax increase
would be expected. Another point that LCBOE included in their resolution
is that such a referendum should only be brought by citizens, families,
or educators.
Jame Wright also made this point in
his statement to city council last week.
Without the support of the educators involved, and
the families impacted, such a referendum question is just a big buck
political agenda on the ballot.
This town is still small enough to call this spade – money trying to
drive the education bus into the ditch.
I see nothing in consolidation that would improve education,
so I see no need for it ever.
I got to the VBOE meeting really early, so I was the first to sign up to speak.
My main topic was to praise the Valdosta Board of Education for
putting
their agendas online in web-readable form (rather than entombed in PDF
as so many other organizations do).
Consolidation won’t improve education so I see no need for it ever —John S. Quarterman @ VBOE 29 August 2011
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.
Videos by George Boston Rhynes for
K.V.C.I.
Later I also complimented the chair for having
one of those rare objects,
a clock on the wall where everyone can see it so they can know how long
they’ve spoken already.
Thanks, George, for the compliments in the information on your YouTube video.
You were blogging long before LAKE.
Everyone please look at George’s blog,
K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizens Informed.
Almost as interesting is what they don’t mention.
CUEE is not named; it’s just “a citizen group”.
And there’s no mention that both meetings were full of FVCS people
opposing consolidation, and not one single CUEE member willing to
speak up for it.
Less than two months ago, both WALB and WCTV named both groups
and
used words like “Talks Heat Up” (WALB) and “Showdown” (WCTV).
What’s changed, TV media?
Here is the text of the resolution against school consolidation
adopted today by the Lowndes County Board of Education.
It does not seem to be on their web pages yet.
First a video of Superintendent Steve Smith reading the resolution,
followed by the text of the resolution.
LCBOE resolution against school consolidation, read by Supt. Smith
education, referendum, consolidation, statement,
called meeting, Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 30 August 2011.
Videos by John S. Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.
This text is my transcription of what was read.
I have added a few links.
-jsq
RESOLUTION
WHEREAS the Lowndes County Board of Education, Valdosta, Georgia,
met on August the 30th 2011,
to discuss positions regarding the consolidation of the
Valdosta City School System and the Lowndes County School System.
WHEREAS
the Valdosta City School System met in session on Monday
It took the Lowndes County Board of Education less than two minutes
at today’s 1PM called board meeting
to adopt a resolution against school consolidation.
Here are a few excerpts, followed by the video:
Superintendent Steve Smith: As y’all are well aware,
we have had numerous requests from our constituents that we adopt a stance
regarding consolidation.
So I think this resolution pretty much describes our position
regarding consolidation.
Nobody had any comments or discussion.
So they moved and seconded.
Philip Poole made the motion.
I didn’t catch who seconded.
Chair Fred Davis asked for a vote indicated “by raising your hand individually
and reciting your name, please.”
Continue reading →
Update 5:30PM 30 August 2011:
Text of the resolution and
video of the board adopting it are posted.
Update 7:12PM 30 August 2011: a recent LHS graduate points out it was 7 to 0, since there are 7 board members. Let’s call it unanimous.