Things really have not changed have they? There are still people outContinue readingthere who believe they can force their will on the people regardless of the circumstances. I still cannot believe that we are here. Consolidation, Unification, where did this come from? What mind first came up with this idea and what is the real motive behind it?
Eight months ago when I heard that Rusty Griffin and his merry band of followers were once again trying to force unification down peoples throats, I never thought it would catch on and would just fizzle away. Oh, how wrong.
Over the months this consolidation issue that I thought would never gain steam is now on the ballot and could possible pass this Nov. 8th.
I have seen this thing divide friends, families, co-workers and even
Category Archives: Planning
Why We Oppose Consolidation —Lowndes County Schools
Lowndes County Schools will be hosting a forum entitled Why We Oppose Consolidation on October 4, 2011 at 7:00pm in the Lowndes High Cafeteria. All community members invited to attend.Some people have been confused by LCBOE’s image version of this meeting announcement:
The meeting starts at 7PM on the fourth of October, which is Tuesday.
They’ve also put the LCBOE resolution
online in plain text.
Here’s the earlier LAKE transcription from our
video of Supt. Smith reading the resolution.
Here are
videos of that entire LCBOE meeting,
including
the unanimous vote to adopt the resolution.
-jsq
Consolidation has nothing to do with improving our children’s education —Etta Mims
I know that there are many “newcomers” to the area which supported consolidation until they connected the dots and realized this has nothing to do with improving our children’s education.
See also Valwood, CUEE, and the Chamber.
-jsq
Solar: Infinite and Clean —Michael Noll
If we are to believe Fox News and the Tea Party, solar doesn’t workContinue readingbecause the solar panel manufacturer Solyndra went belly up, despite the fact that it received $535 million in subsidies. While wasting an enormous amount of tax dollars on a company with a flawed business concept should raise everyone’s eyebrows, the conclusion that the Solyndra mess means “solar doesn’t work” is mind-boggling. It’s like saying “cars don’t work” because Chrysler went bankrupt in 2009, or “T-shirts don’t work” because Fruit of the Loom filed for Chapter 11 in 1999.
Solar is one of the most attractive renewable sources of energy throughout
…to give to somebody who didn’t work —Nolen Cox @ LCC 27 Sep 2011
Nolen Cox seems to think CHIP grant recipients don’t work.
Chairman Paulk declined to let Mrs. Cox speak because he said in a letter to the Commission she called them idiots. When he let Nolen Cox speak, Cox said:
I think it’s interesting that the comments about the CHIP grant comes after the vote. Y’all must be an all-wise group.Chairman Paulk referred to that as sarcastic. Cox disagreed. Paulk said it was in his opinion and he decided such things there.
Cox asserted that:
to get a $300,000 grant it takes about $420,000 of tax money accumulated from citizens.He didn’t cite any source for those figures. He did claim the Commission was luring people into homebuying while home prices are going down.
Somebody had to work for the money that they didn’t get to give to somebody who didn’t work.Sounds like he was saying CHIP grant recipients don’t work. I wonder how they pay their mortgages then, since CHIP grants as near as I can tell only help with down payments?
I guess he didn’t hear Carolyn Selby’s point that CHIP grants turn renters into property tax-paying owners. Seems like that would help keep Nolen Cox’s property taxes low.
Here’s the video: Continue reading
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
Steve Prigohzy, guru of Chattanooga-Hamilton Co. school consolidation
Continue readingA 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
Sports teams won’t change (Tom Gooding) my sports team changed (Ronnie Mathis) @ CUEE 27 Sep 2011
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
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,
They must have liked him, because he was hired as its principal, according Jessica Penot and Amy Petulla in Haunted Chattanooga, Continue readingWith 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.
Questions for CUEE —Etta Mims
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 showContinue readingthat 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




