Tag Archives: Media

Grading policy convenient timing for charter school vote —Barbara Stratton

Received Monday on Media flap over Lowndes grading. -jsq
I found the controversy over the Lowndes Grading Policy convenient timing for last week’s House vote on HR 1162 for a GA Constitutional Amendment to allow the state to establish Charter Schools with no oversight by local boards of education. HR 1162 failed the necessary 2/3 vote on 02/08/12. However,it was approved to be reconsidered on 02/09/12 so it has not gone away. Our 3 South GA republican representatives all voted in favor of HR 1162. (No surprises there, but we will remember in November.) Meanwhile part of the reason HR 1162 failed was the state Democratic Caucus undercut the House vote by requesting Democrats deny HR 1162 in favor of their version HR 1335, which they say goes further in allowing state officials to over ride local school board denials of special schools.

Obviously CUEE is not the only party interested in undermining and over riding local school board authority. However, I suspect CUEE had a hand in the phone campaign asking Lowndes school parents to call Rep. Shaw if they were in favor of HR 1162 because we all know that is one of their tactics. The message did not say to call if they were against it. CUEE is definitely still very much in the mix for discrediting local school board authority and our elected officials are evidently in their corner.

-Barbara Stratton

School grading controversy successfully stirred

I don’t usually promote anonymous blog comments, but here’s one received Monday on Media flap over Lowndes grading. -jsq
The reporter didn’t call it “new”, Troy Davis did when he sent it to all the teachers. Maybe you should talk with some teachers who are deeply against the policy before you start ranting. And to correlate this with consolidation is ridiculous, you’re just stretching for controversy.

-Amy

Dr. Smith enumerated several other things which he alleged that reporter misrepresented; see above link. And Dr. Troy Davis set the record straight yesterday in the VDT.

I’d be happy to talk to teachers, pro or con. Send ’em over!

“Stretching for controversy”? Around here you have to duck to avoid controversy. You know, like the VDT saying it won’t publish any more stories about school consolidation….

I see the VDT is not ducking this one, though, rather helping stir it up. In yesterday’s story, the VDT announced mission accomplished:

The new grading policy for grades third through eighth released by the Lowndes County school system in January has stirred controversy locally and even nationally.
It wasn’t the grading policy that stirred controversy, it was Scott James, Fox News, the VDT, the AJC, the SMN, etc. And that “controversy” will make it easier the next time “unification” rears its ugly head.

-jsq

Media flap over Lowndes grading

Interesting timing, the Chamber deciding to pay off CUEE’s debts from pushing school consolidation, followed shortly by a media campaign to discredit the Lowndes School System.
17 January 2012:
Chamber of Commerce board decides to repay CUEE’s outstanding vendor debts in exchange for owning CUEE’s education document.
3 February 2012:
Maureen Downey blogged for the AJC, No zeros in school any longer. But aren’t there well deserved zeros? Despite admitting that the Lowndes school grading policy is a common practice in many systems and is intended to make sure students actually learn, she ends with this spin:
But aren’t there well deserved zeros?

I would argue that middle school teachers have some students who simply don’t do the work. They get it; they just don’t do it. The Lowndes policy calls for multiple interventions for obdurate students, but wouldn’t a zero make an important statement?

How else do adolescents learn that there are consequences for failure to comply with assignments? In the classroom, it is a zero. In the workplace, it is termination.

3 February 2012:
Lowndes School System Superintendent Dr. Steve Smith explained Lowndes grading policies, including this bit:
The Lowndes County Schools recently released grading guidelines for parents to clarify what has been our current practice on reporting of grades and to reaffirm our commitment to mastery learning by all students. For the past year and a half, our practice in grades 3-8 has been….
The point being that this is not a new policy.
Continue reading →

About the audio, and thanks to Aaron Kostyu

Answering part of Barbara Stratton’s questions, the audio access was part of the award the Commission gave LAKE for blogging questions like yours. You may know it as a bill of attainder. When the commission moved to the palace, we tried sitting in several locations and found that the front couple of rows, near the edges have the best sound. When we were banished to the back corner, we found the audio on the recordings was nearly inaudible. Perhaps our readers and listeners noticed that too.

When we mentioned the poor audio quality to Aaron Kostyu, Director of Technology, he informed us of the possibility of a direct microphone feed in the “media nook” (to the right of the door as you go in) to a properly equipped camera. He even showed Gretchen a camera that had the proper features. A bit of shopping later, we purchased a Canon HFR21 that appears to have many of the features needed for effective recording of these meetings.

Because the “media nook” speaker output had never been used before Monday, Continue reading →

I feel we are selectively being left out of the process. —Barbara Stratton

Received yesterday on Videos for Lowndes County Commission 13 December 2011. -jsq
These videos are fantastic & I love the sequential playlist. How did you get permission to connect to the county microphones? Thanks to both of you, John & Gretchen, we citizens who can’t make all the numerous meetings have excellent access to view the proceedings. I need info on the new camera please.

I have a question. Since all meetings are open to the public & all information is accessible by open record requests why do the various entities have a habit of not publically answering questions related to money amounts publically? Very often I have noticed all local government entities share a habit of referring money & budget amounts and/or bid questions to the packets each member has in front of them instead of vocalizing them. Since the public attendees do not have access to this information I feel we are selectively being left out of the process. Citizens should not have to process & fund open record requests for information that should be part of the public meeting. Since you have more experience with local entities can you explain this practise?

-Barbara Stratton

Mic check stops a police riot at UC Davis

By now you’ve probably seen the video of UC Davis police pepper spraying peaceful protesters who were simply sitting on the gorund. But have you seen what happened next? Police were forming up with weapons raised surrounded on three sides by protesters, when someone yelled “Mic check!” Follow this link. Or, if you want to see it starting with the pepper spraying:

The one with the two pepper spray cans appears to be the same police lieutenant who pepper sprayed the protesters. As the protesters say through the human microphone that they are willing to let the police just walk away, even after the police had assaulted them with pepper spray, that same lieutenant motions to the police, who lower their weapons and back away.

Here’s the police version of the incident: Continue reading →

To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia —Occupy Valdosta

Posted today in Occupy Valdosta’s facebook page:
To the people of Valdosta and South Georgia

We, the local citizens occupying Valdosta, urge you to assert your power.

Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; to nonviolently occupy public space; to create an open process to address the problems we face, and to generate solutions accessible to everyone.

Our issues are varied, yet related.

We seek

Continue reading →

News so good, there’s a law against it!

I’d like to thank the Commission for the award!

Louis XIV handing down an award
at Versailles
I and LAKE will wear it proudly. The VDT doesn’t have one of these. WCTV doesn’t have one; WALB doesn’t have one. Only LAKE posts news so good, there’s a law against it!

It’s now been a week since the Lowndes County Commission passed an ordinance for no stated reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the public. It’s still not on the county’s online list of ordinances. Gretchen was covering an event Friday at which she saw Commissioner Crawford Powell; she asked him to send her a copy of the ordinance. Five days later, nothing has arrived.

So, our only clues are Commissioner Raines’ remarks that it had something to do with videoing and photographing. And his remarks that he believed that the Chairman could do it on his own, but he’d like to make a motion for the Commission to approve it.

So we have to guess it had something to do with Ashley Paulk’s outburst of the previous morning, in which he flattered me by addressing me and only me by name, even though there were at least two video cameras recording the meeting. This is what he was going on about:

The County Commission wishes from this day forward that any filming be done from the media area in the back corner of the room.
He didn’t say anything about still photography, or for that matter about digital videoing, so I don’t know whether what he said had anything to do with whatever it was that Commissioner Raines moved Tuesday and the Commission approved. Nor does anybody else know.

Now a cynic might say, Continue reading →

Ordinance for no reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the public @ LCC 13 September 2011

This is what the Lowndes County Commission wasted tax dollars on yesterday evening: an ordinance not on the agenda, not read to the public, still not on the county’s online list of ordinances, and for no stated purpose. We can guess from Commissioner Raines’ remarks that it has something to do with videoing and photographing. Maybe it has something to do with the previous day’s outburst by Ashley Paulk aimed at a specific individual. Who knows? None of the public who came to that meeting know. That’s what passes for transparent government in Lowndes County, Georgia.

Here’s the video:


Ordinance for no reason, not on the agenda, and not read to the public @ LCC 13 September 2011
Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 13 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Ashley Paulk’s Greatest Hits!

No, not every intemperate outburst! We can’t be everywhere. Just the outstanding ones from the podium as chairman in County Commission meetings.

Ashley Paulk is code enforcement

Citizens were opposing a rezoning on Old Pine Road, 8 June 2010. A Mr. Mulligan of Bemiss Road wanted to know who does code enforcement. Chairman Paulk responded:
You’re looking at him. Me.

I locked up some of my best friends!

While he was interrogating Dr. Noll 12 January 2011 who had the temerity to come to invite the Commission to a meeting, Ashley Paulk remarked:
“I was the sheriff sixteen years; I locked up some of my best friends; that’s the way I operate.”
This was shortly after he said: Continue reading →