News-Record.com

The Early College at Guilford ranks 17th in the top 25 schools in America, according to an annual survey conducted by the magazine U.S. News & World Report.
The survey analyzed test scores including how well low income and minority students preformed on those tests. The survey also reviewed scores from Advance Placement and International Baccalaureate courses.
Established in 2002, the Early College at Guilford is Guilford County Schools first early college program. Students are admitted into the program through an application process that includes test scores and grade averages.
The program includes grades 9-12, with college course open to juniors and seniors. The school has an enrollment of about 190 students.
The Early College at Guilford also ranked 21st in Newsweek’s 2008 top high schools poll. That poll is criticized for only looking at the number of students taking AP and IB tests rather than proficiency measures.
Click here to read more about the survey.

For a couple of weeks now questions have surrounded the hiring of Eric Becoats for the chief administrative officer position and Charlotte-Meck public relations director Nora Carr to replace Becoats as chief of staff.
Among the questions from the public is whether either is technically qualified for the positions. The specific issue is this section from both job descriptions:

MINIMUM TRAINING AND EXPERIENCE
“Minimum requirements would be a Master’s Degree or six-year Certificate and Administration Certification in the state of North Carolina. Experience as a Principal and Central Office Administrator required, and administrative experience as an assistant or associate superintendent preferred.”

Neither has experience as a principal. Schools attorney Jill Wilson said there’s no legal issue with the discrepancy. The state only regulates instructional positions and the school board and superintendent are free to hire anyone they deem fit for administrative positions she said. Wilson added that there are some state requirements for administrators who directly evaluate teachers and principals.

When I asked Green about it this morning he said he had not seen the descriptions online but if this was the case it is an error with what’s published online. He added that both Becoats and Carr are high quality hires for their positions and that they will be important to leading the school system forward.

I know that won’t satisfy everyone but that’s what I’ve got so far and I’m certainly open to hearing your thoughts on the matter.

There’s been some chatter on other topics about this incident with a bus driver and two students so I thought I should create its own post.
What questions do you have about the situation?

As you may have read, there is a registered sex offender attending one of our local schools. School officials are working on a policy to address this issue and the issue of parents and guardians who are registered sex offenders who might need to come on campus.

So what do you think?

Guilford County Schools added another public relations person to their department, despite a hiring freeze. The new hire fills the position left by the promotion of Haley Miller, the system’s number one news face. It's a lower level position, communications specialist or something to that effect.

Superintendent Mo Green instituted the hiring freeze last month for all positions after it was announced the system would need to return about $5 million to the state. That number has lowered to over $3 million. Green revised the freeze last week to,

“Instituting a hiring freeze for non-instructional positions. Exceptions will be made on rare occasions only with the permission of the following administrators: the Chief of Staff, the Chief Administrative Officer, the Chief Financial Officer and the Chief Academic Officer.”

The three other classified appointments are a bus driver, assistant teacher and something called an SNS manager for Gibsonville Elementary. Haven’t figured out what that is yet.

So was hiring another PR person appropriate? They seem to stay pretty busy, I know I ask a lot of those folks with information requests and all. Then again, it seems like a bad time to hire anyone.

--UPDATE-- Miller says the hire was done before the hiring freeze.

When students do this kind of thing should they be allowed back at school? Should they be allowed to go to another school in the district?

Looks like things haven’t improved much at Kirkman Park Elementary. The school board could vote tonight to create a “school with in a school” there. The school is currently all Spanish immersion but my understanding is that the staff is proposing making that a program within the school.

Any parents with students at Kirkman Park want to weigh in on what can be done to bring these scores up?

*Thanks to Lekan for the edit.

Sitting here at the board of education meeting I’m struck by a thought I’ve had before. Who’s paying attention? Nearly every member has a laptop and during long presentations I often see that many members are staring down at their computer screens.

Are they following along or checking email? Looking for past data or watching a squirrel water ski on Youtube? Should the laptops be up during meetings?

School officials are rearranging the high school testing schedule so that students are not taking state tests on the day of the presidential inauguration. As best as I can tell this has never been done. Now there are many reasons for that including the fact that testing days have not always fallen on inauguration day.
Some will take issue with this decision. It’s a tough call. On one hand you’ve given teachers in some courses one less day to review while giving others an extra day. Then again, this inauguration is a historic event among historic events (all other presidential inaugurations I mean). Schools not taking that into account would be naïve.
So what do you think?

2009 is nearly here, what should Mo Green’s New Year’s resolutions be for the district?