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Reducing Class Size at Dudley, Smith, Andrews and High Point Central is much easier to propose than to carry out. I would prefer intensive training for current teachers as an alternative.
Adding new teachers will result in the hiring of a lot of rookie teachers and teachers with minimal qualifications. The problem at these schools is the lack of attention to reading and writing skills. These schools require about one-half the writing and reading assignments as Grimsley. You should not be surprised at the results. Another solution would be to pay some teachers a bonus to teach at these schools. This would tick off the current teachers but it could work. You take a proven teacher and make her a "master teacher" and the bonus would only be paid if the teacher agreed to teach two or more years at a intercity school. Some people say this would not work. My view is that the current system is not working and we need to try something else.

Another approach would be to offer to cancel students loans for experienced teachers that would teach in these schools.

Stop Social-Engineering in our schools...

Stop forced busing.....

Eliminate Smoke-screen Magnet Progams
(Eventually the Feds will catch up with Grier)

Eliminate overpayed positions at the Administration Office....

Fire Current Superintentent, Hire a new one at half Griers salary......

Stop all Racial Healing Seminars, Investigate which school board member is getting kickbacks from Crossroads Ministries.

Look closer at " Good Buddy " contracts such as:
Sodexo, Montessorri Furniture, Soft Drinks, Etc....

If you really want to save $$$$$$$, Cut all of the above items, which by the way have nothing to do with the Educational process of our children.

The Public must wake up, or Dr. Grier and his Horde of Bandits will BANKRUPT Guilford County!!!!!

And that raise for Substitute Teachers who never get a raise was on which page of the budget?

Bruce,

I have wondered about something since the entire budget process first began with the school board.

If the High Point Reassignment plan equally distributes free & reduced lunch students and non-free & reduced lunch students at Southwest, Central, and Andrews, then why isn't there a request from the school board for additional funding to reduce class sizes in math and English at Southwest High? There is a budget request to lower these classes at both Central and Andrews.

Can you explain that?

Thanks.

That's an easy explanation: Dot Kearns and Susan Mendenhall....old rich High Point rules!!

Quest,

I would hazard to guess the answer to your question lies in the overall numbers of poor students at each school. The district picked the four poorest high schools, based on their free/reduced price lunch count for 2004-05.

The average for high schools is 34 percent. The top four regular high schools, based on the 2004-05 numbers from the district, are:

Smith - 65 percent
Dudley - 64 percent
Andrews - 58 percent
Central - 55 percent
(Scales, the alternative school, is actually fourth at 56 percent, but the school has a lot fewer students, about 225 compared with nearly 1,300 at Central, so class sizes are already smaller there).

Southwest has just under 16 percent of students poor enough to qualify for the federally subsidized meals. That puts the school 13th out of the regular schools, 16th, if you count the small specialty schools, such as the middle colleges.

Now those numbers certainly will change over the next four years as the students are moved among the three High Point high schools.

This particular budget request only addresses next school year. We'll have to wait to see what the student makeup of the High Point high schools is two to three years from now, and what the board proposes to do at that time.

I think the proposal to reduce class size at the 4 schools came about as a way to offset the drop in funds received by the 4 schools since they are no longer Title 1 under Dr G's manipulation of the free/reduced lunch %s for next year.

If I remember correctly, when the Title 1 changes were proposed (Round 1 of the everchanging numbers), the cuts to be absorbed by these schools were huge and one board member chewed on Dr G about the impact to a school in his district. In the next round of numbers, the small class size $ was added, the board member's school showed a gain in funding and you can guess the rest of the story...of course, the HP reps did not speak up for Andrews or Central.

Bruce/Jennifer - I hope when the dust settles on the budget, you can do a follow up story about the amount of Title 1 $ lost by deserving schools (how can the board justify giving no Title 1 $ to an elementary school unless 60% of the kids are free/reduced??) vs the actual "equity funds" received to offset the loss. I am afraid there are a lot of schools that could have used the certain Title 1 $ (remember GC was getting an additional $1.2 million next year) - these school supposedly will get "equity funding" to offset the loss - where is that $ coming from?

Amy,
the funds come out of each and every schools per pupil allotment. The schools that receive title 1 money is addressed every year. The federal guideline for that money is you MUST give the money to any school that is 75% F/R. Under that it is up to each school district to decide. Since the NCLB was enacted I have read many articles that address this and the vast majority of school boards have gone to the full 75%. Remember that the qualifications/sanctions are only for the schools that take federal money. No money/no sanctions. The principals at the HS said they would rather lose the money than face sanctions-- it was bad for moral. I would think it would be bad for moral to not be able to teach the students enought to pass the minimum requirements that the government sets. It was a cop out in my opinion. To make up the money, the rest of the county loses to help those schools that didn't have the guts to face the music/sanctions. Something like 3 card monty! Now it looks like the county is going to cut the school budget by ALOT-- the county budget guy says 7.6 more than last year. That is about 1/2
of the request. Any bets on how much the county commissioner will actually give the BOE? What cuts they will make? Keep your eyes open!!!

3-Card Monty Strikes Again !!!!!!

Grier may be the greatest "SWINDLER" since Bill Clinton.

The idea behind No Child Left Behind is to improve the product, not to pretty up the package. Changing the "F" from 70 to 60 only means that we will simply have more burger flippers with high school "diplomas".
To use another analogy (a word that the SATs have removed from the "must-know" list): The school board is buying into the Dollar Store concept. We can go there and get products that the manufacturers cannot sell at full retail. As long as the educational product - the kids - can make it to the Dollar Store shelf, our educational manufacturers boast of success.