News-Record.com

Guilford County teachers could have less help in the classroom this fall, if state budget cuts take place.

The district could lose about 100 teachers in the proposed state cuts. In all, 2,025 teacher assistant positions across the state would be cut.

This is in addition to the 173 teacher assistant positions that GCS already was eliminating. Those positions will be traded in for extra teachers to lower class sizes at poor-neighborhood schools.

Now, it's worth noting that these budget discussions aren't final. But I know teacher assistants are a big concern of many Chalkboard readers, so I thought I would throw this out there for your consideration.

In today's paper we report that Guilford County Schools lost about 12 percent of its teachers in 2004-05.

A more exact percentage is 11.8 percent, compared with 11.49 percent the year before. Numberwise, turnover was 586 of 4,962 teachers compared with 589 of 5,125 teachers the year before.

Districts must report turnover to the state annually. State officials compile the data and prepare a report that should come out in early September. That will give us an idea of how the state is doing overall and how Guilford compares to other districts.

The report looks at why teachers are leaving, for example: retirement, personal reasons, relocation, another teaching job elsewhere in the state or out-of-state, career change, even disatisfaction with teaching. Read Guilford's report to the state here. (You'll have to scroll down a little bit until you see the headline 'GCS Teacher Turnover Information Reported to DPI')

At first glance, those numbers won't make sense. How could the district have fewer teachers when it is growing by an average 1,000 students per year, creating a need for more teachers? Add to that the push to lower class size, which creates more teaching positions, and your reaction might be the same as mine when I saw the numbers -- HUH?

Tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., we will have results of the 2005 ABCs of Public Education report up on the Web site.

The ABCs is the state's annual public school report card. Schools are graded based on how much academic growth they show during the previous school year. It's similar to the recent Adequate Yearly Progress (or AYP) report, which is a federal benchmark.

We want to know what you think. So feel free to weigh in on the 2005 ABCs when they are released tomorrow. Or, if you have something to say before then, that's fine, too.

I thought you might like a sneak peak at tomorrow's story on how Guilford County Schools and the state overall fared on the ABCs.

If you want the entire package (and when I say package, I'm talkin' big chunk of the front page plus full inside page blow out!) you'll need to regress practically to the dark ages and pick up a hardcopy of the paper. Most of it will be online, plus of course all the links we've already set up for you, but you probably won't get the full effect unless you see it in print.

Anyway, here are some highlights that you might not have gleaned from reading the state or district press releases.

*Guilford didn't fare too well when compared to other large, urban school districts. Only 58 percent of Guilford's school's met state testing goals compared to 74 percent in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, 85 percent in Wake and 68 percent in Cumberland (which includes Fayetteville). Winston-Salem saw 55 percent of its schools meet or exceed goals.

In comparison, 69 percent of schools statewide met goals, down from 75 percent the year before.

*Guilford had two of the four Low-Performing schools in the state: Andrews High School and the Middle College at N.C. A&T. They'll receive help from the state through assistance teams, which consist of educators trained specifically to help such schools. A state official said today that the assistance teams have a high rate of success in bringing schools out of low-performing status in one year. Many have gone on to become Schools of Excellence, according to Elsie Leak, who heads up curriculum and school reform at the state Department of Public Instruction.

*Guilford also has two of the 35 most-improved schools in the state: Triangle Lake Montessori and Early College at Guilford (which, by the way, made the list last year as well).

*Test scores have basically flatlined across the state. After enjoying a slow, but steady climb for 10 years, the passing rate for combined reading/math scores has been stuck at about 81 percent since 2002-03.

For more on the ABCs results for 2004-05 "Read all about it" tomorrow in the News & Record.

UPDATE: Here are links to today's story on local results, as well as a big district-by-district chart.

OK, so it's not earth-shattering news that Guilford County Schools' Web site went from
www.guilford.k12.nc.us to www.gcsnc.com. But, hey, it could be useful information to someone out there in the blogosphere.

Both addresses will work until January. Note that this also means e-mail addresses will change. The username (the first part before the dot-com) will remain the same. So if you wanted to e-mail superintendent Terry Grier, the address changes from griert@guilford.k12.nc.us to griert@gcsnc.com

FYI: I knocked off about 3 seconds of typing with the shorter address!

Here's a link to the district press release on the change.

As you read in today's paper, the number of students taking advantage of federal transfers has more than doubled for 2005-06. In all, 532 students are transferring.

These students are able to transfer because 1. they attend schools in low-income neighborhoods and 2. these schools failed to meet federal Adequate Yearly Progress standards for two years in a row.

Well, the Guilford County Board of Education kicked off its new redistricting process with a bang. The board heard plans of how attendance lines at five new schools in the northern part of the county might look.

But perhaps most interesting, they also received a plan to change attendance lines for Andrews and Southwest high schools (plus Welborn and Southwest middle schools). Roughly 200 students from each school would switch schools. That would eliminate the controversial High Point reassignment plan.

I know that always is a hot topic here. So what do you think? Is this an acceptable solution?
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UPDATE: Here is a link to the redistricting maps presented last night. These maps aren't the best quality (i.e. they don't have street names), but it's better than nothing.

I don't want to distract from the redistricting discussion, but we had a request to post the list of Guilford County Schools open houses.

I thought that might be something people would want to know, too.

Concerned about student behavior in school? Then you might want to attend a Tuesday night community forum on "Solutions to School Suspensions."

The forum is sponsored by the North Carolina Association of Education. The goals are the session are

- To find solutions to reduce student suspensions;
- To particularly reduce the disproportionate number of minority student suspensions;
- To increase the understanding of cultural diversity among educators;
- To find ways to improve student behavior in school.

The meeting will be from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Glenwood Branch Library, 1901 W. Florida St. in Greensboro.

This is the sixth of eight forums NCAE is holding across the state this month. Previous meetings have been in Durham, Elizabeth City, Wilmington, Statesville and Fayetteville. Future meetings are in Asheville and my hometown of Shelby.

UPDATE: Here is a link to Bruce's story on the meeting.

There were some requests to post today's editorial (Page A8) on redistricting and the High Point plan here at the Chalkboard. So here it is in its entirety plus the link if you want to see it as it appeared on the Web site.

Since most people tend to get confused about what an editorial is, I'll explain here briefly. This is an opinion piece that reflects the majority view of the editorial staff (the folks who put together the opinion page, not to be confused with editors, who run the news department. The publisher also is part of the editorial board that comes up with these opinion pieces.) I know someone had asked who the writer of this piece was, but I'm not sure that's germane since the writer is putting on paper the consensus view of the group. Whenever you see those unsigned pieces on the editorial page, that's an editorial board viewpoint. Anything with a name on it (sometimes a picture, too) is that individual person's opinion.

Now is not the time to alter plan's course
As the Guilford County Schools redistricting process continues, the school board should renew its commitment to the High Point reassignment plan.

There are times that clearly call for a change in direction, and times when it is critical to stay the course, however tough.
One year into its High Point high school reassignment plan, and on the brink of a brand-new school year, the Guilford County Board of Education has to decide exactly what time it is for High Point's middle and high schools.

That decision must not be a hasty one. The board and many in the larger community have made a tremendous investment in the controversial plan, despite continued opposition from some corners of the county. Given that investment, and ambitious plans for improvement already announced by the incoming administration at Andrews High School, the school board should stand its ground and renew its commitment to the reassignment plan for, at the very least, the full 2005-06 school year.

The 2005-06 school year starts next week and if you need some tips on what to send for lunch, you might want to check out an upcoming seminar.

Ellen Briggs, author of "Are Your Kids Running on Empty?", will be at the Earth Fare in Greensboro on September 15. She'll have two one-hour seminars on childhood nutrition: one at noon and another at 3 p.m.

Just wanted you to know that the News & Record will run an exclusive interview with Guilford County Schools Superintendent Terry Grier in Sunday's paper.

He'll talk about a number of topics, including how he plans to address the recent academic downturn of the schools, where he sees the High Point reassignment plan going and even his future in Guilford County.

You also will be able to listen to the complete interview online beginning Sunday here at www.news-record.com

An advertising insert written by Terry Grier distributed in Friday's News & Record contained numerous grammatical and typographical errors. However, neither Dr. Grier nor GCS staff members made these mistakes - the News & Record did.

John Robinson explains the situation here:

The Center on Education Policy has an exhaustive new report on high school exit exams. You can read the full report on their Web site.

To see what they have to say about North Carolina's graduation standards, click here.

North Carolina will have new exit standards, starting with freshmen who enter high school in 2006-07. Students in that class will have to pass End-of-Course tests in Algebra I, English I, civics, U.S. history and biology in order to earn a diploma.

Tomorrow will be a busy day in education.

It is the first day of school (although a handful of schools with year round or extended calendars have already started).

And, the board of education is meeting that night. The 5:30 p.m. meeting will be in the usual location on Eugene Street.

Discussion that night is expected to include an overview of the first day of school, updates on the 2005-06 budget, and continued talks on redistricting.

See the entire agenda here. You'll have to click on the link to the Aug. 25 meeting to open the agenda.

The meeting will be aired live on the district's cable channel 2.

I've been out to some schools this morning and from what I can tell, things are running pretty smoothly, including on the transporation end.

That's not to say every bus was on time and not every kid was picked up. I was at Falkener Elementary, for example, and two buses still hadn't come in as of 9 a.m.

But the massive, wide-spread transportation problems the district suffered last year - where hundreds of kids weren't picked up and buses were running hours late - don't appear to be happening today. We'll continue to monitor the situation this afternoon.

When I was in school, saying a certain magic word could get your mouth washed out with soap.

But a British high school is letting students use the, um, F-word in class - as long as they don't do it more than five times during a lesson.

As you might expect, parents aren't exactly thrilled with this policy.

More bad academic news for Guilford County Schools:

The district's SAT scores dropped 17 points from 2004 to 2005. Guilford went from 1011 to 994, wiping out the large gain the district saw in 2004.

Remember, the SAT is a two-part test: math and verbal. The scores here are for the last round of students who took the old SAT, where 1600 meant a perfect score. The new SAT's perfect score is 2400 because a third section, writing, has been added.

North Carolina's mean score of 1010 was below the national score of 1028. The state's score increased 4 points - all in the math section.

The national score increased 2 points.

Read more in tomorrow's News & Record.