Category Archives: Government

Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant —Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011

Carolyn Selby stood up to thank the Commission for accepting the Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant.
This grant will serve people who are in the 80% or below median income bracket. These people probably would not be able to afford purchasing a house without down payment assistance. And especially in today’s economic times these people need a hand up. Instead of renters, they become taxpayers, and that certainly helps our economy.

Here’s the video:


Thanks for accepting the CHIP grant –Carolyn Selby @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
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

CHIP Grant: Twice Ashley Paulk Broke the Tie @ LCC 27 September 2011

Twice Tuesday Ashley Paulk broke a tie to vote for assistance state-funded assistance for poor people for affordable housing. Joyce Evans made the motion, Crawford Powell said nothing, Richard Raines was absent, and Paulk seconded and broke the tie for.

Tuesday the Lowndes County Commission considered a routine acceptance of a Community HOME Investment Program (CHIP) grant. The previous morning at the work session, Commissioner Raines had (according to the VDT) said he was against it. (This is the same Richard Raines who thought NOAA Weather Radios were “wasteful spending” back in March.) However, Raines was not at the regular session Tuesday; presumably he was on one of his many sales trips. Twice, Commissioner Evans made a motion related to CHIP, and Commissioner Powell did nothing. Twice, Chairman Paulk exercised his privilege in such a case and broke the tie, seconding and voting for the CHIP grant.

The first CHIP vote was 9.a. Resolution of Intent to Submit a 2012 CHIP Grant Application and Commitment Letter

Here’s Part 1 of 2: Continue reading →

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 →

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 →

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 for CUEE —Etta Mims

Received today.
Updated 5PM 28 Sep 2011: Added preface and other changes to the document by Etta Mims. -jsq
I am attaching an 8 page document I compiled this week to show that CUEE and the Vote Yes supporters are not answering the questions being asked of them. They are dancing around the topics but these supporters are spending alot of money to put our children and the employees of both schools in danger of 4-5 years minimum of changes that will be detrimental to all concerned.

Another interesting note, if you go to the Vote Yes page, and

Continue reading →

CUEE demolishes its own case

CUEE still doesn’t have a plan for improving education. When asked for any concrete examples of education improving because of school consolidation, not one person could come up with one: not CUEE, not the Chamber, not their invited experts. Their invited experts established that consolidation in Troup County not only didn’t save money, it required a bond issue. And it took four or five years of the hardest work they’d ever done, even though they couldn’t give any evidence that it improved education. It was like that on almost every point: the Chamber and CUEE either couldn’t answer the simplest questions, or even more frequently demolished their own case.

The last question asked to give an example of any company that had declined to come in because of multiple school systems. Not only could nobody give an example, but someone, I believe it was Walter Hobgood, stood up at the podium and said when he was working for a large company he had never encountered a case where they looked at the number of school systems.

Early on Chamber Chair Tom Gooding went on at great length about Continue reading →