Category Archives: Community

Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidation



Mayor Sonny Vickers said he thought it was important for children
and grandchildren and proper for the City Council to take a stand
against school consolidation, and City Manager Larry Hanson read
the statement (transcript appended).

For:


City Council District 1 - James Wright

James Wright

District 1


City Council District 3 - Hoke Hampton

Hoke Hampton

District 3


City Council District 4 - Alvin Payton Jr.

Alvin Payton

District 4


City Council At Large - Ben Norton

Ben Norton

At Large

Didn’t Have
to Vote:


Valdosta Mayor - Sonny Vickers

Sonny Vickers

Mayor

Against:


City Council District 6 - Robert Yost

Robert Yost

District 6


City Council District 5 - Tim Carroll

Tim Carroll

District 5

Missing:


City Council District 2 - Deidra A. White

Deidra White

District 2

After very brief discussion, the vote was 4 for
(James Wright of District 1, Hoke Hampton of District 3,
Alvin Payton of District 4, and Ben Norton At Large)
and 2 against
(Robert Yost of District 6 and Tim Carroll of District 5).

That means Ben Norton changed his vote since since

their last non-binding vote related to school consolidation.
(Nonbinding because
they didn’t have any authority to decide whether the referendum
went on the ballot or not.)
Council Deidra White of District 2 was absent throughout the meeting,
which I find rather odd since she seemed quite aware when I spoke to her
the previous day that this vote was going to occur.
Back in August

she voted against putting the referendum on the ballot.
Yes, I know the motion was not exactly the same, so the votes
are not exactly comparable.
In any case, this time there was no tie and thus no need for the (new)
mayor to break a tie.

Here’s

the video:




Valdosta City Council voted to oppose school consolidationo

education, consolidation, resolution,

Regular Session, Valdosta City Council (VCC),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 6 October 2011.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

Here’s the statement transcribed as accurately as I could from the video:

Continue reading →

Chattanooga deja vu —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on

How did we get here? apparently referring to Barbara Stratton’s comment since reposted as
Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz.
-jsq



After reading the
Ed Weekly article, [slightly earlier version quoted here, referred to
here. -jsq]
I was struck by a very strong
dejavu feeling. I checked the date twice and only to realize ( twice)
that this consolidation went on more than 15 years ago.

The city schools were in bad shape financially and educationally in
Chatnooga city. That is the major difference with our situation here.
As much as some want you to believe that Valdosta city schools are not
doing well, there are many that can point to the school improvement plan
and it being recognized as one of the best in the state, or other notable
achievements that differ front the view of VCS propagated by the folks
on CUEE.

Other than that we are looking at the same issues; racial segregation,
neighborhood schools, professional development monies in the different
district, curriculum changes, busing to attain integration requirements,
and the concerns about redistricting and moving kids to other schools.

Again this was 15 years ago, yet we are now faced with the same issues.
At the time of the article consolidation had passed (19k to 21k).
Teachers and parents Interviewed expressed concern about the poor kids
of the city not getting a fair shake because the county (largely white)
schools had little connection to the issues of the city kids. We would
be faced with that just on a smaller scale.

The other strange likeness to this 15 year old consolidation is that
Steve Prigozhy seems to have some very vague notions of school reform
today that he did back then. These notions have been found to be less
than successful in the ensuing 15 years.

Distancing himself from his failures does not make him a success at
anything but manipulation of facts. The education of my children is
not going to be reformed by a man that spins the truth and panders to
the wealthy.

Thank you for sharing the Edweekly article.

-Karen Noll

Hauntingly familiar Tennessee Waltz —Barbara Stratton

Received 3 October on How did we get here? -jsq



Very well said JC.

On Thursday 9/29/11 CUEE called a special meeting of their Education
Task Force at the City Hall Annex. Reading on and between the lines of
the VDT article it appears the new, more agressive tactic is to call
into question the conduct and accountability for goverance of education
of the Valdosta City Board of Education. Under the leadership of Steve
Prigohzy they seem to be heading toward usurping this goverance from
the elected school boards to another entity they can control. This is
hauntingly familiar if you read an article titled Tennessee Waltz from
the Education Week Teacher.


http://www.edweek.org/tm/articles/1995/10/01/02tenn.h07.html

(If you go to the Education Week Teacher website it will say the Tennesse Waltz article is only available to registered guests, but registration is free.)

Leadership for the post consolidation planning was forcibly taken from
the county superintendent and given to the Public Education Foundation of
Chattanooga, TN, which was headed by CUEE’s own Steven H. Prigohzy. His
specialty seems to be powering school consolidations and overseeing the
resulting planning which does little to improve the academic or financial
conditions of the public schools (actually these get worse). It does
however provide the perfect climate for pulling grant monies to establish
the magnet schools he also specializes in.

-Barbara Stratton

The Tennessee Waltz article seems to be a slightly later and slightly revised version of the article I referenced in

Steve Prigohzy, guru of Chattanooga-Hamilton Co. school consolidation, as quoted recently by Smart Memphis.

-jsq

Occupy Valdosta

It’s spread from

Wall Street
to Valdosta,

scheduled for noon-3PM Friday 14 October 2011:



It is time to Occupy Valdosta!

Friday October 14, 2011 BE AT DREXEL PARK @ 11:45am AND MARCH WITH YOUR
FELLOW NEIGHBORS, CLASSMATES, COWORKERS, BROTHERS AND SISTERS!!!

We are the 99% and it is time to be heard!!!

Erin speaking at the organizational meeting today:


Y’all come!

-jsq

And now an educational idea from Shakira

Belief based on evidence!
About something that deals with the underlying local educational problem here: poverty.
From her speech yesterday at the White House:



It is my belief and its also been demonstrated that if we provide early
childhood education to Latino children it would take less than a decade
to reap the benefits since investment in early education is proven to
generate the fastest returns to the state.

With more ECD programs there will be less Latino students being held
back, less dropouts and less crime involving school-age children; and
they will be more productive individuals to society.

Continue reading →

I can’t sit back without responding with facts —Etta Mims

Received 4 Oct 2011. -jsq

Greed
is an excessive desire to possess wealth or goods with the intention
to keep it for one’s self. Greed is inappropriate expectation.
However, greed is applied to a very excessive or rapacious desire and
pursuit of wealth, status, and power. —Wikipedia

We
would like to think that our community “leaders” are not full of
pride and greed, but please listen closely:

  • The
    CUEE Board did NOT
    meet with both school boards prior to sending the petition around
    town.
  • Troup
    County Schools have not
    met AYP in 8 years.
  • Tennessee’s
    Hamilton County system, the entire district, is currently high
    priority. This means they have had two
    years of bad results    .
    This is the school used in CUEE’s original study.
  • CUEE’s
    expert
    Steve Prigohzy said,

    "If you believe in the end that running
    one system is cheaper than running two school systems. If in the end
    you are going to cast a vote for a single system because you think
    it would save money, I
    wouldn’t cast my vote
    I do not think it will save money."

  • If
    consolidation passes, there will be only
    7 Board Members representing almost 20,000 students    .

Continue reading →

Consolidation was about economic development —Fred Wetherington @ LCBOE 4 Oct 2011

Current LCBOE member Fred Wetherington said he was on the Chamber of
Commerce Board and is still a member.
Remembering how consolidation started at the Chamber:



The whole idea was could it help us with economic development in our community.
At the same time could we increase student achievement.
And could we save the taxpayers money.

Well, I’m here to tell you tonight that I was one of the board members…
that if that theory and those ideas had held up after research and study,
I would be supporting this idea.

But he doesn’t. Because that theory and those ideas did not hold up.

He might have settled for something less than that:

Continue reading →

We did talk to the consolidators —Philip Poole @ LCBOE 4 Oct 2011



Current Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE) member
Philip Poole said various members of both school boards have met
with consolidation proponents, and had asked them to involve the
whole community in any decisions.
Since that didn’t happen, there’s been less involvement lately.
And the referendum is solely about dissolving the Valdosta School System,
which would trigger the Lowndes system having to take over.
Which would result in losing federal and state funding due to
the resulting school system being larger.

Here’s

the video:




Referendum is to dissolve Valdosta School District —Philip Poole @ LCBOE 4 Oct 2011

Why we oppose consolidation,

Community Forum, Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 4 October 2011.

Videos by Gretchen Quarterman for LAKE, the Lowndes Area Knowledge Exchange.

-jsq

Let the Chamber attend cocktail parties —Dan Davis @ LCBOE 4 Oct 2011



Dan Davis suggested letting professional educators deal with education
and let the Chamber attend cocktail parties.
That got a big round of applause.

First he established his credentials in business and education:
20 year veteran of CPIE and of the Chamber of Commerce;
has businesses in many countries, but chooses to live here.
Having seen the world and many educational systems,
he thinks:

This consolidation is really a bad issue; very very bad.

He thinks consolidation proponents are

very misinformed and very misguided.

He invited CUEE and Chamber members to join him and

Jerome Tucker
in Community Partners in Education (CPIE).

Here’s

Part 1 of 2:

Continue reading →

Consolidation: A Financial Puzzle —Dr. Troy Davis @ LCBOE 4 October 2011

Dr. Troy Davis spelled out where we are financially in the school systems,
and what consolidation would do to that: it would raise taxes and reduce services.



He took CUEE’s own figures for how much more consolidation would require
to be spent per each Valdosta City school student, and demonstrated that
not only would that require raising taxes for both Valdosta and Lowndes
County residents to near the state-capped maximum of 21 mils, but even
then there is no way enough tax revenue would be generated to pay for all
the things CUEE proposes to do after consolidation, and probably not even
enough taxes to continue employing all the teachers currently employed
by the two school systems. Oh, plus consolidation would lose state and
federal grant money by increasing the composite school system size, so the
local taxpayers would have to make up that slack, too.

Here are his
slides.

Here is
a playlist.

-jsq