Category Archives: Community

Commission votes to subsidize saddle club



Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission voted to renew a land lease contract
with a saddle club for I’m pretty sure they said $100 a year.
Commissioner Powell made the motion.
Yet he said nothing at all a few minutes before and after when two
votes came up about routine acceptance of a

Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP)
grant to help relatively less affluent people afford housing.
Commissioner Raines, who grandstanded about CHIP the previous
morning at the work session, apparently had no problem with the
saddle club subsidy.
He didn’t show up Tuesday to vote for or against either.

Now I have nothing against the saddle club; I know little about it. It’s the double standard that bothers me.

If you have trouble hearing what is said in this video,
thank the Commissioners for
the award they gave LAKE.

Here’s

the video:




Commission votes to subsidize saddle club

Regular Session, Lowndes County Commission (LCC),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.

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

-jsq

Farm Day Recognition —Mara Register @ LCC 27 Sep 2011



Mara Register from the Mayor’s office of the City of Valdosta
came to the Lowndes County Commission to speak about

Valdosta Downtown Farm Days, May through September.



One of the wonderful things about this event is it
highlighted our beautiful historic courthouse.
It highlighted our local growers and producers,
and our historic downtown.
But also went further to help promote healthy eating in our community.



…bringing people together to the downtown area to take advantage of the
products that were produced here locally.
The sense of conviviality was just wonderful,


bringing the community together.
It’s very exciting actually to see several of our vendors here this evening.

Ashley Paulk, on his very best behavior that day, recognized
his neighbors the Quartermans

Continue reading →

Steven H. Prigohzy, All-Star and Best-Paid Educator!

We have an all-star athlete class educator advising us,
with an all-star athlete salary!
Hm, I wonder how much CUEE is paying him?

A Sun Life Financial press release of 26 February 2011,

Exceptional Students & Nonprofits, All-Star Team of Pro Athletes, Corporate & Education Leaders Tackle Lagging High School Graduation Rates at Sun Life Rising Star National Summit,



“Steven H. Prigohzy, education advocate and developer of one of the
country’s first open magnet schools.”

Well, that sounds like the
Steve Prigohzy of CSAS in Chattanooga,
whose

Public Education Foundation
advised the consolidated school system there.

What about this, is this just a coincidence of names?
Empire Center for New York State Policy put out a press release of

8 October 2009,

According to the data, the highest paid non-professional school employee
(outside New York City) was Steven H. Prigohzy of the New York Institute
for Special Education, who was paid $230,000.

It turns out it’s not a coincidence.
In a paid death notice in the New York Times,

BLOOM, FRANCES R., 18 January 2005,

Continue reading →

Results of PEF’s plans for Chattanooga/Hamilton Co. schools?

The partnership between
Public Education Foundation, headed by Steven H. Prigohzy, and
the consolidated public schools in Chattanooga and Hamilton County, Tennessee
continues.
So, how have all those great plans for improving education worked out?

First, let’s look at PEF’s own

History webpage,



In 1994 Chattanooga city voters voted to turn responsibility for education
over to the county, requiring the two systems to merge. At the request
of the Hamilton County School Board, PEF surveyed 3,300 area residents
and convened 135 community members – educators, civic and government
leaders, residents, parents and students – to help shape the vision
for the new school system. When the newly consolidated system emerged
in 1997, the partnership with PEF continued.

Interestingly, Prigohzy is no longer listed as board or staff with PEF.
Maybe we should ask them why….

So, what came of all this consolidation in Chattanooga?
It must be great, considering PEF’s Board Approved

2005-2010 Strategic Plan for Great Public Schools,

In the years 2005 – 2010, Hamilton County Public Schools will meet or
exceed national benchmarks for excellence with continuous, measurable
improvement in reading, mathematics, and in the numbers of students who
progress smoothly from grade to grade, graduate from high school and go
on to college or career-path jobs. Because of this sustained progress,
Hamilton County will be recognized among the very best mid-sized public
school systems in America. The community will be justifiably proud
and more and more people will understand and support the investment
necessary for great public schools. The Public Education Foundation
will be instrumental in these achievements as a champion of school
transformation and will devote its expertise and fundraising capabilities
to the Hamilton County Public Schools as a catalyst for bold ideas that
create real and positive change.

Sounds great!

But an outside study shows a different result.
Kontji Anthony wrote for WMCTV, 23 January 2011,

Study offers glimpse at possible impact of school consolidation,

Continue reading →

Steve Prigohzy, guru of Chattanooga-Hamilton Co. school consolidation

We’ve seen that Steve Prigohzy’s magnet school, CSAS,
was started in 1986.
Chattanooga school consolidation with Hamilton County, Tennessee was in 1995.
And look who was waiting to tell them what to do:

Chattanooga, 1995: City Referendum on Consolidating Schools, and No Legislative Interference,
by Smart City Memphis, 1 January 2011,
quoting Education Week 2 August 1995,

A month after the election, the board voted to ask the Public Education
Foundation to help frame the new system. The move was partly on the
advice of educators in Knoxville, who faced a raft of problems after
consolidating rapidly with Knox County eight years ago.

The foundation, one of the wealthiest local education foundations in
the country, has worked closely with educators in both the city and
county. Its president, Steven H. Prigohzy, is a dynamo with a clear
vision of where he’d like to take education in the new system.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for a county

Continue reading →

Videos by LAKE of CUEE school unification meeting 27 Sep 2011



Videos are appearing in

this playlist
of the 27 September 2011 school unification propaganda meeting by CUEE
and the Valdosta-Lowndes County Chamber of Commerce (VLCoC).
And if CUEE or VLCoC doesn’t want to see me call it propaganda,
nothing’s stopping them publishing their own videos of the event,
as I already suggested yesterday.
Unless maybe they don’t want people

to see their speakers contradict each other.




Videos by LAKE of CUEE 27 Sep 2011

School Unification,

Forum, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, Inc. (CUEE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 27 September 2011.

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

-jsq

Sports teams won’t change (Tom Gooding) my sports team changed (Ronnie Mathis) @ CUEE 27 Sep 2011

CUEE and the Chamber hardly need opponents for school consolidation.
All they need is for people to listen to what they say to contradict each other.
Here’s a good example.



First,

Tom Gooding said sports teams won’t change (until there’s a
newly elected Lowndes County school board, which of course can do
whatever it wants to; read the fine print as he speaks).



Then Ronnie Mathis said he’d been through “unification” elsewhere,

and his sports team changed from Vikings to Bobcats.
Oops!

Maybe this is why CUEE won’t post videos of its own meetings.
But LAKE has, so you can watch this for yourself.

Here’s

Part 1 of 2:

Continue reading →

Valwood, CUEE, and the Chamber

This

interesting graphic
found on

2 is better than 1
illustrates that the connections between CUEE and Valwood go beyond
what

Annie Fisher pointed out,

“The members of the CUEE, they send their children to private schools.”

Beyond what Alex Rowell pointed out, that several CUEE board and supporters

are Valwood trustees or donors.
The Chamber is also closely tied to Valwood.


The Chamber and Valwood are actually even more tightly coupled than
the graphic indicates.
According to

Valwood’s own website:

Valwood Board Elects Officers and Trustees

May 27, 2011

Valwood’s Board of Trustees is pleased to announce that it has elected
the following officers who, along with Tom Gooding as Immediate Past
Chairman and Dutton Miller as “Chairman’s Choice,” will serve on the
Board’s Executive Committee for the coming school year:

Terri Lupo – Chairman of the Board

Billy Tidmore – Vice Chairman/Chairman Elect

Jack Henry – Treasurer/Chairman of Finance Committee

Jim Godbee – Secretary

Also, the Board of Trustees has re-elected the following Trustees to 3
year terms beginning July 1:

Brooks Akins Laura Perlman
Mike Godwin Sally Querin
Tom Gooding April Scruggs
Bill Peeples

Now let’s look at the Chamber’s board.
Tom Gooding is the Chamber’s Chair,
and Terri Lupo is on the board,
and is the Chamber’s immediate past Chair.
That’s right, Gooding and Lupo just switched spots (Chair and past Chair) with
both the Chamber and Valwood.

Plus as the above graphic points out, there are further intersections
between the Chamber board and CUEE supporters.
So the Chamber, CUEE, and Valwood are tightly intercoupled.

It seems we have a group of private school supporters trying to take over
both the local public school systems.
Does that seem right to you?

-jsq

Steve Prigohzy’s magnet school

CUEE’s paid expert from Chattanooga,
Steve Prigohzy, started and ran a magnet school in Chattanooga,
much like the one in Troup County that is

still causing extra costs and consternation eighteen years after unification.
Prigohzy’s school also used prison labor to avoid spending on local labor.

After reading Barbara Stratton’s piece about

Steve Prigohzy screening a movie about magnet schools,
I wondered, who is this Steve Prigohzy, anyway?
CUEE never showed us his resume, as near as I can tell,
and they’re a private organization, so they don’t have to.
But his tracks are all over the Internet.

Cynthia M. Gettys and Anne Wheelock
wrote for The New Alternative Schools in September 1994,
(Volume 52, Number 1, Pages 12-15)

Launching Paideia in Chattanooga,



With the board’s approval and support from the Lyndhurst Foundation,
a committee outlined the necessary steps to develop a Paideia school
for Chattanooga students. First, the group hired Steve Prigohzy as the
school’s planner, promoter, and educational leader. Prigohzy looked for
teachers who were lifelong learners themselves. “I would ask teachers
to talk to me about a book they were reading that I shouldn’t miss. I
wanted people who were acting out their curiosity about the world,” he
said. Prigohzy also sought teachers whose appreciation for discourse would
sustain the school as a community of learners. Limited public confidence,
especially in the city’s middle schools, influenced the planning.

They must have liked him, because he was hired as its principal,
according Jessica Penot and Amy Petulla in

Haunted Chattanooga,

Continue reading →

Questions concerning consolidation were strictly forbidden. —Barbara Stratton

Received today on

18 years later in Troup County. -jsq



The reference to the consolidation process which produced a magnet school
in Troupe Co. without any improvements in general academic or financial
improvement takes me back to my first CUEE meeting experience. It was
held at the new Valdosta Boys & Girls Club. VDT news articles stated
the meeting would be to discuss consolidation.

However, at the meeting
questions concerning consolidation were strictly forbidden. We watched
the movie

Continue reading →