News-Record.com

I haven't received any calls or tips about such, but the district sent this message out today:

"As a result of inaccurate statements/rumors of a possible shooting at Dudley High and Lincoln Academy. The following statement is provided:

Yesterday, Dudley and central office administrators were alerted to an internet blog posting that made threats to a few Dudley students. Police investigated and identified the student who made the postings, as well as the students referenced in the postings. The SRO at Dudley worked with police detectives in contacting the student and his parents. Also contacted were the parents of the students named in the posting.

Please know that threats referenced in the internet posting were not threats of death or shootings, but rather ‘I’m going to slap you around/beat you up’ type threats; police have determined these threats were not of a criminal nature.

Neither school is currently on lock down. Connect Ed telephone messages have been sent to the parents of both schools."

This should soothe any of you who heard the rumors.

The New York Times had an article today on schools getting rid of laptops because they're actually interfering with the educational process.

Update: View here parts of Guilford County Schools' insurance policy.

In case you missed it, here is a follow-up from Saturday on the district's reaction to the county commissioners' decision last week and the mysterious $42 million insurance settlement. The short of it: The county pledged to make sure Eastern gets built, but the how is still unknown. Oh, and the $42 million that Commissioner Linda Shaw mentioned on Thursday is at this point, a bogus number.

Remember, Eastern's main building, which burned, was appraised at $16.2 million (factoring in depreciation). School board attorney Jill Wilson clarified on Friday that the "replacement" cost of a new identical building is almost meaningless because the district could not build the 1968 version again because of how obsolete it is. This makes more sense when you consider the district's sublimit of $100,000 on updating a building to meet newer codes (increased cost of construction). According to the terms of the insurance policy, the district may lose out on this sublimit because it pertains to construction of a new building with the same occupany as the former.

I think I may have mentioned this in a prior story or post, but for those who missed it: According to the policy, the insurers will pay the district whatever is least costly for them -- 1) the cash value of lost or damaged property, 2) the cost of repairing or replacing lost or damaged property, 3) all or part of the appraised value, or 4) repair, rebuild or replace property with like kind, quality and function. Common sense says the state might offer closer to the $16.2 million, not the costs to actually rebuild the school.

It seems that the state's insurance is closer to car insurance. If your 1990 Honda Civic gets totaled, your insurance company will pay you the value of the car at the time it was totaled. But that amount won't cover the cost of a 2007 Honda Civic. If you can find an identical 1990 Civic for sale, you might luck out, but would you want it?

Now, the reason the new Eastern will cost $61 million, that's another story....

County commissioners will have to decide whether to give the school system $172.4 million next year - a 10 percent increase from this year.

The school board passed the 2007-08 budget last night by a 7-2 vote. Voting for: Garth Hebert, Jeff Belton, Kris Cooke, Deena Hayes, Amos Quick, Nancy Routh and Alan Duncan. Against: Darlene Garrett and Anita Sharpe. Absent: Walter Childs and Dot Kearns.

The budget includes money supporting Mission Possible, a teacher incentive program; expanding a student discipline program; and covering increasing energy costs.

Here's the original budget request.

Superintendent Terry Grier said this week that the school board will review an audit of the district's human resources department after they complete budget talks. The Council of the Great City Schools completed the audit in March and school officials developed a draft plan of strategies to improve the department the following month. Grier ordered the audit to determine the strength of the department's leadership and whether its hiring, training and retaining processes are effective.

Check out today's story on what insurance adjusters for the state and district have agreed to in this stage of their negotiations about Eastern Guilford High School.

Today I spoke to Eileen Townsend, chief of insurance with the N.C. Department of Public Instruction, and she said that the district should not expect significantly more than $14.2 million on an offer for the damaged building. The state still needs to come up with a figure for Eastern's contents (appraised last year at $1.6 million) before making a final offer to Guilford Couty Schools.

"We're not going to push them (the district) into a final offer until their comfortable with it," Townsend said.

These numbers put into better perspective what the district could expect. School board member Garth Hebert said the $14.2 million was close to what he expected on the building.

Some potential good news for schools statewide: Townsend said DPI has requested from the state Board of Education that it raise the sublimits on increased cost of construction (i.e. code changes) to $1 million (currently $100,000) and business income and extra expense combined to $1 million (currently $600,000 total) at no cost to school systems. Guilford school board attorney Jill Wilson had complained about the low sublimits on Thursday, saying that she planned to take this up with state officials after Eastern settlement. Well, Townsend has beat her to the punch.

Townsend made the request in mid-April as a response to the Eastern fire and if approved, would take effect July 1. This won't help Eastern, but would likely help school systems breath easier on future claims. She noted that this request does not need approval by the Department of Insurance, as it does not regulate the DPI insurance fund.

In Eastern's case, the limited coverage of "extra expenses" would refer to the relocation costs of students, the preparation of the Browns Summit and GTCC sites, the leasing of mobile classrooms over a two-year period, etc. I remember the Browns Summit site work costing more than $400,000 alone, surpassing the $300,000 sublimit. The increased costs of construction are supposed to cover code changes and at $100,000, would not cover the cost of an elevator to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements.

If you were a little bit confused about the back and forth between the school board and commissioners over the remaining 2003 bond money, the district's latest cash flow forecast may (or may not) help put things into perspective.

Dr. Grier and his staff have said they believe county finance director Brenda Jones Fox clouded discussions of the bond money and hurt the district's chances of getting certificates of participation to finance the new Eastern Guilford High School. Jones notified county manager David McNeill in late April that the county had $121 in unspent bond proceeds to fund Guilford County Schools construction projects. But Grier thought the district had only $31 million in unspent funds and on Tuesday, Grier told school board members that Fox had sold more bonds than what the district currently had bills for.

Grier also said Fox announced in a recent commissioner meeting that she was "having problems with the IRS" because of profit she was making from the selling of the bonds (arbitrage). Fox denied to the N&R that she is in trouble with the IRS. When I checked with the Institute of Government at UNC Chapel Hill, I was told the Local Government Commission has to approve the selling of bonds and it wouldn't do it so that the county could make a profit. (exhale)

If you look at the cash flow forecast, you can see that the district expects to spend an additional $128.3 million over the next 2-3 years for remaining 2003 bond projects. Half of those unfinished projects are due next year. The timelines let you know how much wiggle room the district has to route 2003 bond funds to help pay for a new Eastern.

I reported last week that the school board voted to split $124,633 in redirected Homework Hotline money between Lindley Elementary School and Welborn Middle School in the fall to cover Title 1 funds they would lose.

It was a tough decision for the board as several schools no longer qualify for the federal funds because of their percentages of students receiving free or reduced price lunch. For example, Aycock Middle will lose all $265,534. Rankin Elementary will lose $90,770 out of a total $335,000. Check out the full list of schools here.

We finally got the fall EOC results for Guilford. They're in multiple PDF files, by subject.

District; English; Algebra I; Algebra II; Civics; History.

I'll check to see why geometry, chemistry, physics and physical science weren't included.

Here's a link to the fall EOC scores from Charlotte-Mecklenburg. (They include geometry, but not chemistry, physics and physical science.)

Winston-Salem/Forsyth, Wake and Cumberland (the other large urban districts) don't have theirs available online.

2 things about fall EOCs: Only schools with block schedules, where students take an entire course in a semester, will have given the tests in the fall. So traditional schools aren't included here. And even block schedule schools may have a much larger number of students taking the tests in the spring (partly because students can retake a course if they fail first semester).

Thought this was an interesting article (registration may be required) on how one mom treated the bullying behavior of her daughter.

She made her daughter, a seventh grader at a California middle school, wear a sign that read:"I Engaged in Bullying Behavior. I Got Suspended From School ... Don't Be Like Me. Stop Bullying." She had to wear the sign outside her school before and after school while classmates walked by her.

Eastern will start next year in temporary classrooms with a new principal. Lisa Cooke announced her resignation Monday as district officials simultaneously announced that Travis Reeves would lead the school next year. Reeves, a 12-year education veteran, most recently served as principal of East Montgomery High School in Biscoe.

If you missed it, police reporter Eric Townsend wrote a detailed story Sunday about the day of the Nov. 1 fire that destroyed the school. He spent months interviewing students, school employees and firefighters to try to recreate the path of the fire. Investigators still haven't charged anyone in the intentionally-set blaze.

Thirteen of Guilford's 14 traditional high schools made Newsweek's list of top high schools this year, two of them in the top 100.

Every year the list of top high schools sparks debate about what it means. The ranking looks at the number of students who take college-level courses (mainly Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate) while in high school and divides that by the number of graduating seniors.

The ranking is not meant to indicate overall school quality, but rather access to rigorous courses for more than just the top-level students, according to Washington Post reporter Jay Mathews. He created the ranking in 1998.

He cites the 1999 and 2005 studies by U.S. Department of Education senior researcher Clifford Adelman. Both showed that the best predictors of college graduation were not good high school grades or test scores, but whether or not a student had an intense academic experience in high school.

He also cites a California study that shows students who pass AP exams are more likely to earn a bachelor's degree than those who don't pass. However, that same study shows that taking AP (and honors courses) bore "little or no relationship to students' later performance in college," according to this USA Today story from March 2006.

Mathews has been criticized for not looking at how many students actually pass the AP/IB tests. Last year, he added a section called "equity and excellence" which shows the percentage of seniors at each school that passed at least one test.

Basketball player Brendan Haywood spent today at Peck Elementary encouraging students to read and giving them some help to add books to their own home libraries.

Haywood, a Greensboro native who plays for the Washington Wizards, donated $4,000 to the school to buy books for students. The Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro pitched in another $2,000.

The visit tickled students, who greeted Haywood with raucous cheers. Principal Francine Mallory cheered for another reason.

"(It's important) for our boys to understand that while it's important to be able to make threes, it's important to be able to read, as well," she said.