News-Record.com

... a common theme with all of these groups:

school boards are NOT listening. Board members have taken what are supposed to be non-partisan positions and turned them political.

How many groups will it take in Guilford County for all taxpayers to see that their money is going down the drain, along with future generations?

How many groups will it take for board members to realize that they are sitting in those seats for the betterment of the children--not TERRY GRIERS'S RESUME!!

How many groups will it take?? And in the meantime, how will the students that have been experimented with make up for the lost academics?

Will we have to send letters with our college applications saying:

"Dear admissions officer,

Please over-look the fact that my child is from Guilford County Schools. I promise he will try REAL hard, please excuse that fact that he ain't up ta par in readin', writin', 'rithmatic. And sorry about that low SAT score, the school board in my district was tryin' this here new "plan" and it obviously ain't workin' out too good --even after 3 years of trying REAL hard. We are just unfortunate that that happened to be our child's 3 last years of schoolin'. Please consider him anyway. His a REAL good boy. Our child will do real good.."

At this point, what do we do? The board members that just like to be on T.V. need to resign and the others that actually care about education better find a NEW SUPERINTENDENT-- and FAST!--before we actually have to send letters like the one above.

Marcy,

AMEN!!!!!!!

You might be interested in seeing the GCS Personnel report for period ending February 21, 2005. 3 teachers are being recommended to have their licenses revoked for failure to provide 30 days notice. 2 OUT of the 3 TEACHERS cited are from ANDREWS. (English and Chemistry teachers)

It looks like they were in a big hurry to leave Andrews High School. Wonder why????????

ALso 27 teachers resigned during this period. 4 of the 27 are from - you guessed it - Andrews!!!

And now Grier wants to remove the Title 1 funding from Andrews.

The GCS personnel report can be found at:

http://www.guilford.k12.nc.us/boe/2005/3_8/personnel_report.pdf

Bruce,

Do you need one of those fine "Grier Outta Here" magnets? I'll be happy to send you one.

I'm only guessing that the next natural step after matrimony will be children.....? I sure hope this mess is cleaned up before any little Brucey's are going off to kindergarten!

Join in the battle, your wallet will be happy and your future children will say, "Thanks, Daddy!! for making sure I have great schools to go to!"

Bruce,

You left out another important group - ABC of Wake County. Please visit www.assignmentbychoice.org for additional information.

I've always said - until there's an ABC group in every county in the state, there will never be statewide educational reform.

The 3 largest metropolitan areas of North Carolina have these education advocacy groups, yet none of the 3 school boards wants to work with them. It's all political.

The point is this - social engineering hasn't worked in Wake County, Mecklenburg County, and it isn't working in Guilford County.

SCHOOL BOARD - let's get back to the business of TEACHING CHILDREN the BASICS!!!!

i,

The BASICS--EXACTLY!! It's as simple as your name.

ABC....it's as easy as 123....Where do you sign up for these ABC groups?

And to Sherry, I'd like a magnet. Where do you get them?

Bruce,

You made comment that one of the Charlotte/Meck school groups wanted to make a radical change, breaking the school district into several smaller ones. First, I don't think that idea is radical, as it is likely the best answer to big out-of-control, unresponsive school districts.

Second, smaller school districts exist for smaller population areas, generally known as communities. Communities elect people to office that are their friends and neighbors. That is, they elect people whom they know and trust. And, in turn, those elected people are ACCOUNTABLE for what they do in elected office. They have to be because they have to face those people every day of their life. Those elected representatives can't hide behind their desks and act in a manner that is not in the best interests of those that elected them. They are truly accountable, or they will be gone. This was the model that was visualized when the school board form of school governance was implemented. Heck, you might not even need a school superintendent in this form. If you don't have this form of governance, why not just elect the school superintendent and allow them to be an honest politician and be responsive to the citizens that elect him or her.

Imagine, Susan Mendenhall and Dot Kearns having to meet their constituents every day of their life and answer for their actions. They would not be able to ignore them or not answer their hard questions, much less delete their emails without even looking at them.

No, I don't think that idea is radical, unless you think that truly having elected officials provide representation and be held accountable is a radical idea. That idea seems mainstream to the American way to me.

Teddy,

You aren't alone in your line of thinking. There are plenty of advocates for smaller school districts.

In some states, each high school and its feeder schools form a school district. So in a big county or a metropolitan area, you might have a bunch of small school districts.

And when I said it was radical, I didn't mean it necessarily is a bad idea. I'm just saying it is a 180-degree departure from the trend in North Carolina.

Forty years ago, there were something like 160 school districts in the state. Now, there are 115. So if the folks in Mecklenburg County were able to break down CMS into smaller units, that would buck a 40-year trend of school mergers.

Bruce and Teddy: Breaking up big districts would be "radical" in that it would require a policy change, if not a new law (I forget which) at the state level. Currently, the state will fund only one school district per county, and that has been the biggest driver of unified school districts for the past dozen years or so.

Lex,

Having to change policy doesn't qualify as "radical" in my book. Just because we have been doing it that way for several years doesn't mean that it is the right answer. As a matter of fact, it seems that with the move to larger school districts, we have seen a deterioration of the quality of the education occuring in them. In this case, big does not mean better. I was educated in a small town and a small school district, and the quality of the education and teaching was superior. Everyone was personal friends and neighbors with the members of the school board. As a matter of fact, my first cousin was the Chairman for many years, and they named a school after him when he died. He really cared what town people thought about the schools, and he tried his best to make them quality. They were among the best in the state and superior to the city schools.

The worst thing that happened to the High Point schools and county schools was when they were forced to consolidate with Greensboro. Now those schools, the students and the parents play second fiddle to Greensboro.

So, let's not resist change just because we have been doing it that way for years. Let's go back to doing it right.

How can it be that the state will only fund one district per county when you have Davidson, Lexington and Thomasville all in Davidson county and also Randolph and Asheboro in Randolph county?

How do they make this work - HP really needs to pull out of Guilford County - it couldn't be any worse!

It also occurs to me that if the folks in Charlotte/Meck make some progress in breaking the school district into smaller distrcits, then the state would have to change its policy, so that would not be a barrier to breaking down GCS. As I said, in this case, bigger doesn't mean better. Sometimes, smaller and personal lends more quality.

Let the Revolution begin!!!!