News-Record.com

The event was well planned and showcased many great students.

The plan is ambitious and wide spread. How we do that is the real meat of the issue, and where, oh where would the money come from? What do we give up for these lofty goals? Will teachers be moved around just to balance the educational and racial issues? Will they have a choice?
Where will the regional superintendents be housed? How many people will move with them?

How many people will have to be hired to set the base line and do all the survey's planned.

I think the goals are great... how do we get there?

Debora,

I'll give credit to Mo&Co., they're all saying it will be hard to do this stuff under the current budget issues. He's assured me, and it will show up in some future articles, that at least some of the larger endeavors are going to be possible through cuts to other programs.

An example is this new regional superintendent concept. Green is eliminating the School Support Officers and Instructional Improvement Officers. From conversations I've had with him and others it seems clear most of those folks will become regional superintendents and their support staffers. But I feel pretty confident some of those folks are leaving GCS as Green has said he is also looking outside GCS to fill these new jobs. My guess is that a few folks will be taking jobs in other districts.

So there's an example he's used alot to show how the shifts in the organization will allow some of this to get done.

Then again there's not been a lot of info on how they propose to pay for the office spaces these new community superintendent folks will need. That's going to cost some new dollars, I would think.

It seems like a lot of this is base on these types of major shifts, which could lead to some frustration from either the community or internally. I'll be curious to see what gets a lot of support and what is met with skepticism.

How long has the Charlotte-Meck system been decentralized? How is it working? Did Mo say the consolidation of the three systems in Guilford Co did not work? Does he still support site based management? He has big dreams. We all do. Whether this works will depend on what he gives priority to. The temptation is to work on the small stuff that does not make a difference (such as energy efficient windows) and put off the real heart and sould of education such as reading and teacher improvement. It is unclear to me what he will do to motivate students and staff. How is he going to help in classroom management? The lack of structure inside the classroom was not addressed.

Good questions Joe. I've got 'em down and will be asking around.

Thanks as always.

Joe is right, how do we have 45 minutes of reading a day.. not all science/socialstudies etc teachers are willing to buy into this. How do you monitor it... how and when do we teach our teachers how to do all that is necessary. If they already knew how to do this and get great scores, don't you think they would be doing it? Of course, they certainly don't teach for the money! It must have more to do with loving children and seeing them grow.

The HS at the Nature Science Center could be interesting.. would it be animal/science based.. do they have room for more than 100 kids? That would be another principal/ secretary/sims/ cirriculeum specialist etc... more $$$$

I would love to have all schools having the same equipment. How much would it cost for all middle school kids to get laptops like Hairston? We should already know how many books per kid/ computer per student etc. That is on the NCReport Card. Does this equity include classroom size and teacher assistants, if so the Montessori program needs to give up TA, or everyone else should get more. See the plans sound great, but I can't see how you make all that work with the money that we have.

If I sound skepical it is only because I have been watching for years and all we do is make plans, shift around a few things and nothing improves. SAT scores, same.. or down. Passing AYP's down (yes the bar went up, but we have known that for years-why didn't we push then if we have the capacity to do so), crime is up.. frustration is up, etc.

I say bring on the ideas, but show us the real plan to accomplish this. I will be watching the BOE tomorrow night from home... can't make the meeting. I hope we hear some true details. Good Luck, Mo.. you have a great plan; now start the true work and make it happen.

Debora,

Just out of curiosity, when you say "I would love to have all schools having the same equipment", how do you account for equipment provided by the school's PTA/Boosters (classroom, playground, sports, etc)? Do you subtract PTA funding from general school funding e.g. if the PTA raises $20,000, that amount is subtracted from the school's general funding to 'level the playing field" between schools.

Yes. Definitely

I can't sit by quietly any longer. I know of 2 "teachers" in GCS today who must be the most incompetent teachers in the nation - they have no business standing in front of a classroom full of students each day.

Have I spoken to the principal? Has he/she done anything? NO - says he/she has, but nothing changes.

There are definitely bad teachers in the district, but there's no way to get rid of them.

No joking. I wish I were, but I'm not and I have actually cried over it this year.

Ask a principal if he can fire a teacher. Unless they've committed a criminal act, the answer is no.

Someone asked me why I haven’t asked to have my child transferred to another class - The class is only "taught" by this one individual. The fact is that there is NO teaching going on in the classroom. I have also studied bullying and have decided that this adult who stands in front of the classroom is nothing more than a bully.

I wish I could go into detail as I would love to vent, but am afraid to do so as the teacher has also bullied me when I brought several situations to his attention. I was belittled and literally cried afterwards. He has succeeded in shutting me up as I'm afraid to do anything now. He's never threatened me, just extremely rude.

The principal is sympathetic but has so much as admitted that there is nothing she can do. The teacher has tenure and while he will likely not have this class again, he will be there until the end of the school year.

My child is afraid of him and absolutely now hates to go to school - and this is a straight A student.
Are there others out there with similar stories - if so, what did you do to resolve it?

The plan has been rolled out.

The major theme is reorganize.
This is what companies do when they don’t know what else to do.
It’s kind of like a “group grope”

Now in all honesty. I am not qualified to know if they should reorganize or not.

However. What I do know:

1) The previous superintendent was not fired he left for greener pastures.
2) The majority of the school board was happy with his approach/results (they renewed his contract even as he was interviewing)
3) The new superintendent wants to make significant changes.

If the board agrees then those that supported the old superintendents approach have a duty to do the honorable thing and resign.

Thoughts

David,

I support that. I think the only ones remaining would be Garth, Darlene, and Nancy.

Not sure how I feel about the deducting the PTSA money, as that is suppose to be raised for programs etc, of course we all know that PTSA's donate non consumables as well as programs.

Let's turn that question around and ask, if it would be necessary for PTA's to try and raise money if each school had all its needs meet? I think we are both crasping at air, since that will never happen.

The principal at my child's middle school has effectively shut down the PTSA. While it is still a group who meets regularly, fund raising is now not allowed.

PTA funds should never be subtracted from the general school funding and neither should items provided by the PTA.

The PTA is an independent organization which should work with the schools not for them.

These are donations for a particuliar school and removing them from the school for which they were intended will end future donations to the school and parent participation.

The county PTA council could and should address the needs of schools without active PTA"S along with the many other community liasons....

There are "plenty" of Guilford County sponsored discrepancies without diving into PTA funds.

The PTA's should help parents be better parents. They should get out of furnishing supplies and instruction materials that the system should furnish. The PTA's should
not be a money making machine. A child should have an equal opportunity for achievement regardless of whether the PTA raised gobs of money or not.

Joe,

Amen!

Joe,

Amen!

Angie:
I will listen…garth@thecpafirm.com and yes my son often comes home hating school but the teacher appears to be improving with instructional intervention. (fyi, I have 3 in system at 3 different schools and I won’t name names) A couple of his teachers he would do almost anything for. Please feel free to email me with details.

RE PTA not involved in fundraising, again email me I want to know confidentially what principal is killing parental involvement. I keep parent names confidential. Our parent Teacher Associations are a great safety net if properly guided and anyone telling me they have enough money in their local budget does not need a lobotomy it was self induced. If they can’t figure it out we can find another way to use their abundance productively. Yes, we waste money in this district and in 2 years I have seen a great reduction of this waste and believe we are heading down the right road. Yes, we will “pay” too much for a lot of things and I wish we could improve purchasing efficiencies in the district, but a culture change takes time.

We already have a “Robinhood” mechanism in the district, it is our allocation formula. The more Free and Reduced Lunch kids at a school, the greater the allocation of discretionary dollars and less students per teacher ratio. I don’t care how good a PTA is, they cannot overcome the mechanism we already have in place that provides less resources to our middle income schools.

Most comments on this post and previous posts involve issues that require more financial resources.(e.g. more textbooks, 100% funding ofr arts programs, equal financial resources for all schools, etc.)

But this requires more revenue to be generated to cover the increased expense. What are some creative ways to raise that revenue so that these issues can be addressed without increasing taxes during a time of economic recession?

Garth,

Mo's plan talks about Safety Assistants he plans to have. I am in favor of this. However, the SRO's need to be removed from Middle Schools unless their is an absolute criminal element at the school. SRO's are not very good at hand holding. They tend to think that there is crime everywhere and it must be nipped in the bud. Students that are 12 and 13 years old need something else. We can get about 3 Safety Assistants for every SRO. If it is decided to keep the SRO's, they should be assigned only to the most violent of the Middle Schools. If we try Safety Assistants for a couple of years and they fail, we can always bring back the SRO's.

Joe,

With all due respect - when was the last time you visited a middle school in this county?

Joe,

I think the world of you and respect your opinions and I know you mean well...but our middle school is much more dangerous than our high school has ever been.

I agree that there are times when a middle school fight should not be a straight pipeline to juvi....but...I have witnessed these for myself and would not want a "security guard" in charge of my child's security at our school. Some of these incidents are "brutal". Some of these kids look like full grown adults with out of control testosterone to match.

We have psychotic kids that we cannot or do not permanently kick out of school in our facilities and our staff and students need "real-time" protection.
I speak from experience...not say so.

Spend the last month volunteering at our school and ride our buses.....You will not believe what is going on in these buildings.

I was on the Project Team for Northern Middle. I visited it when School was in session. I do not dispute the fact that they may be some middle schools that have students with such violent behavior that a sworn officer needs to be in the building full time. If that is needed, I do not oppose it. However, the BOE decided to give every middle school one SRO regardless of theschool climate. The thinking was that it was not fair to give some schools one and not others. This kind of thinking wastes lots of money. Remember the meeting of all the SRO's at the Admin building. Some admitted they had little to do. Principals and teachers handled it all. My position is that more kids will be turned around by a Safety Assistant than can work with the parents than an SRO that thinks teenagers will be gun toting criminals if their conduct is not addressed in juv. court. The legislature did not think it was necessary to have a SRO in each middle school and did not provide funding for them. Is Guilford Co. so much more unsafe than many of the other counties in NC and the US. Sometimes, I think we use SRO's to make up for the fact that some of our principals don't want to stomach misbehavior of the students. Let's give the principal a choice, he/she can trade the SRO in for other types of personnel or more teaching supplies/equipment.

Joe,

Again, with all due respect - Northern is not a typical middle school - take a visit at one of them that's NOT located in the Northern/Northwestern part of the county - that environment is artificial to the rest of the county.

Joe,

You blew that one. Come on down to the South boy!

We give you a dose of real life!

Northern?

Come on Joe. Are you joking!

Joe,

I agree with you wholeheartedly with your point....let the principal decide if it is warrented in his school. It should not be an all or nothing proposition I also do not agree with removing all Instructional and school support officers from the schools....our is very important in our school. We hired one superintendent...we don't need five more. We need our employees on the school grounds and in the school building....The more people you have running the system the less you have educating the students.

I can tell you that even though I do not agree with some of the cases that are sent to juvi, I would still not want to see ours removed from the school. I was there when there was not one and it was scary......Every year they have several kids bring guns to school (tucked in their SMOD attire)
11 - 15 years olds. How is an unarmed security guard going to protect our kids?

We had "security guards" on the Eastern Guilford campus after the fire and they were a joke...of course they were suppose to be our fire alarm system. I would rather have assistant principals, social workers, and counselors...
They are trained to do this job...and good ones do it well. Give the principal the option!

I do not want to see us contract this out to a Security company....They are not trained properly for this situation.

Contracting out Safety Assistants would be a move in the wrong direction. The records indicate that bringing weapons to school is a very rare indeed. In most cases the guns were brought to school for protection or to intimidate, I were not brought to be used. I am not against sworn officers in all cases. We pay about 100k a year for a sworn officer. I think we can do the same job for less.

FYI
Though some Board Members might think I discuss too much with public but I work very hard and keep a couple of attorneys around just so I do not cross the line. The public has a right to know.

Bringing guns is not as “rare” as you think and from what I KNOW in my last 2 years you will not convince me to change, I am responsible for the safety of these kids and until I leave the Board or I am convinced things have changed, I might be a stodgy conservative financially, but there was a point I considered withdrawing my middle school son for safety concerns.
I have not buried my head in the sand, I work hard to keep up with what is really happening.

I feel better knowing these officers are there doing their job and my gratitude is true and deep.