Tag Archives: school

LCBOE did its homework about consolidation, 5 October 2011

Unlike consolidation proponents, the Lowndes County Board of Education did its homework, showed it to us all, and could answer questions, all demonstrating that school consolidation would not improve education, would increase expenses and taxes, and far from bringing in more industry would probably drive some away by reducing the quality of education.

Tuesday evening, going beyond the research it had already published, Dr. Troy Davis 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.

Jerome Tucker, on fire as a cheerleader, spelled out his life-long Continue reading →

Why We Oppose Consolidation —Lowndes County Schools

From their website:
Lowndes County Schools will be hosting a forum entitled Why We Oppose Consolidation on October 4, 2011 at 7:00pm in the Lowndes High Cafeteria. All community members invited to attend.
Some people have been confused by LCBOE’s image version of this meeting announcement:

The meeting starts at 7PM on the fourth of October, which is Tuesday.

They’ve also put the LCBOE resolution online in plain text. Here’s the earlier LAKE transcription from our video of Supt. Smith reading the resolution. Here are videos of that entire LCBOE meeting, including the unanimous vote to adopt the resolution.

-jsq

Videos by LAKE of CUEE school unification meeting 27 Sep 2011

Videos are appearing in this playlist of the 27 September 2011 school unification propaganda meeting by CUEE and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC). And if CUEE or VLCoC doesn’t want to see me call it propaganda, nothing’s stopping them publishing their own videos of the event, as I already suggested yesterday. Unless maybe they don’t want people to see their speakers contradict each other.


Videos by LAKE of CUEE 27 Sep 2011
School Unification,
Forum, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc. (CUEE),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Sports teams won’t change (Tom Gooding) my sports team changed (Ronnie Mathis) @ CUEE 27 Sep 2011

CUEE and the Chamber hardly need opponents for school consolidation. All they need is for people to listen to what they say to contradict each other. Here’s a good example.

First, Tom Gooding said sports teams won’t change (until there’s a newly elected Lowndes County school board, which of course can do whatever it wants to; read the fine print as he speaks).

Then Ronnie Mathis said he’d been through “unification” elsewhere, and his sports team changed from Vikings to Bobcats. Oops!

Maybe this is why CUEE won’t post videos of its own meetings. But LAKE has, so you can watch this for yourself.

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

Very interesting school consolidation chart

Very interesting chart on a site called Vote No! for the children.

I have not confirmed the data in the chart, but I’m guessing if there’s anything wrong with it, CUEE surely can tell us.

-jsq

PS: Found on the Friends of Valdosta City Schools facebook page.

School consolidation ordinance introduction @ VCC 25 August 2011

Valdosta City Council began a protracted debate about a school consolidation referendum, starting with Mayor Fretti, Attorney Talley, and Council Sonny Vickers.

Mayor Fretti introduced the topic.

Here’s Part 1 of 2:


School consolidation ordinance introduction @ VCC 25 August 2011 Part 1 of 2:
Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (LCC),
Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 25 August 2011.
Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Attorney Talley announced that enough registered voters petitioned for the referendum. He also read from a Georgia Supreme Court case that indicated that the council more or less had to approve the referendum.

Sonny Vickers asked what would happen if council did not approve it. Continue reading →

Tonight: school consolidation referendum vote at Valdosta City Council

Now that CUEE got its 95 signatures more than 25% for a school consolidation referendum, the Valdosta City Council votes tonight on this item which has been added to their agenda:
5.a) Consideration of an Ordinance for a referendum to allow citizens of the City of Valdosta to vote on whether to annul and repeal the special independent school system so that the City of Valdosta public school system shall become part of the Lowndes County public school system.
This appears to be a pro-forma vote to put the referendum on the ballot. But you never know what might happen, especially in council comments or Citizens to Be Heard. Maybe FVCS will show up.

Thanks to Barbara Stratton for the heads-up.

Here’s the agenda.

AMENDED AGENDA REGULAR MEETING OF THE VALDOSTA CITY COUNCIL
5:30 PM Thursday, August 25, 2011
COUNCIL CHAMBERS, CITY HALL
Continue reading →

Qualifying for local city elections is next week

The VDT editorialized yesterday:
On Monday, qualifying week begins for candidates interested in running in the November election for Valdosta Mayor, City Council At Large and Council Districts 1, 3, and 5; Hahira City Council Districts 2 and 3; City of Dasher Post 3 and 4; City of Lake Park Mayor and four council positions; Remerton Mayor and five council seats; Valdosta School Board Districts 4, 5, and 6.
The VDT points out that city elections usually don’t get much turnout, but this year there are two referendum questions on the ballot that may cause record turnout. They are: Continue reading →

Retrofitting suburbia —Ellen Dunham-Jones

There are many jobs in this. The Five Points redevelopment is an example of what she’s talking about. It’s a lot better than building more sprawl: safer, less expensive, more jobs, less energy cost, more energy independence, better health, and more community.

Georgia Tech Professor Ellen Dunham-Jones spole January 2010 at TEDxAtlanta, Retrofitting suburbia

In the last 50 years, we’ve been building the suburbs with a lot of unintended consequences. And I’m going to talk about some of those consequences and just present a whole bunch of really interesting projects that I think give us tremendous reasons to be really optimistic that the big design and development project of the next 50 years is going to be retrofitting suburbia. So whether it’s redeveloping dying malls or re-inhabiting dead big-box stores or reconstructing wetlands out of parking lots, I think the fact is, the growing number of empty and under-performing, especially, retail sites throughout suburbia gives us actually a tremendous opportunity to take our least-sustainable landscapes right now and convert them into more sustainable places. And in the process, what that allows us to do is to redirect a lot more of our growth back into existing communities that could use a boost, and have the infrastructure in place, instead of continuing to tear down trees and to tear up the green space out at the edges.
Here’s the video: Continue reading →

Pine Grove School Hotel?

Found in Reuters today, Top 10 quirky hotels:
3. Kennedy School in Portland, Oregon

You won’t mind staying after school at the Kennedy School hotel. A former neighborhood elementary school, the Kennedy was transformed into a luxurious and funky hotel, with guest rooms in former classrooms – complete with school-related décor like blackboards and coatrooms. After-school features include a restaurant, multiple bars, a brewery and a movie theater. Set in an up-and-coming residential neighborhood, the Kennedy draws locals and visitors alike.

The school rehab could be an idea for pine grove school: closest hotel to the base with non traditional services.

-gretchen