News-Record.com

Who voted for and who voted against it?

Nancy, Amos voted against..can't remember the other. The main concern..lack of time for planning.

Morgan, Jennifer -

I had an idea for a story for you. What if you highlighted the job responsibilities of several high ranking Central office positions? You could shadow the administrator around for several days and then report to us what you learned. Even after reading the job descriptions for:

Chief of Staff (http://www.guilford.k12.nc.us/HR/job_descrip/Chief%20of%20Staff.pdf)

Chief Organizational Development Officer
http://www.guilford.k12.nc.us/HR/job_descrip/Chief%20Organizational%20Development%20Officer.pdf

and others, I simply can't imagine how they fill their days.

In other words, in the eyes of the public, this certainly looks like wasted funding in our tight budget.

If parents want to pull their kids out for (non-public-funded) religious studies (I assume this would also mean allowing students to attend an ashram, madrassah, or yeshiva, as well), I suppose that is up to parents who may not worry their child is missing academic instruction. Wouldn't bode well, I predict, for cranking out more scientists and engineers.

"...madrassah, or yeshiva" or Pirate Ship (http://www.venganza.org/about)?

Interesting that Darlene Garrett did not even attend the meeting when Guilford Middle is one of the schools in her district. She should have been all over the issue making sure that adequate plans were being made. I think it is a great idea but knowing how the system works I don't think 3 weeks is adequate time to plan for a new program like this. Morgan, were there any details given at the meeting? Will the building be renovated to accomodate 16 year olds even though it was previously scheduled to be demolished? The building is very obviously meant to house elementary age students. Will the students be required to wear SMOD like the other students at Guilford Middle? Who will be in charge of this "school"? Will they have their own administrator and counselor? I sincerely hope someone is actually planning this!

Darlene was on a family trip out of the state. My guess, she didn't know anything like this would come up.

They are going to have their own counselor, and administrator. I believe the state will pay for a principal if there are 100 students, not sure if there are less.

The main problem, as you stated, is not enough time. If they transfer teachers/admins.. then that leaves open spaces with less than one month till school starts. If they hire outside the county, there is still not time to meet, stratagize etc. Those kids need lots of help and a clear path of how to help them.

I think this alternative school would be not only a benefit to these students, but more importantly bringing some order back to the regular classrooms.

Simply put: Do you want disruptive students in the every day classroom disturbing others? Do you want seasoned teachers to continue to leave because of these disruptive students? Do you want to continue to lose parent volunteers to private schools? OR

Do you want help for the disruptive students who are in the minority? Do you want to keep our our good teachers? Do you want to keep the students who are performing in our schools along with their parent volunteers?

I believe the sooner these children are removed from the regular classroom setting, the better. I do hope the program can be up and running by the beginning of this school year. Even if it takes awhile to get the kinks out, it can't be any worse than getting not results by keeping their situation status quo.