Tag Archives: consolidation

Anyone attending the CUEE meeting expecting a plan … left disappointed. —VDT

While many other people,
such as

Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS),


are trying to prevent the damage to education
CUEE is trying to cause through its

“unification” referendum,
CUEE had a meeting of its educational committee yesterday.

Sharah Denton wrote for the VDT,

CUEE focuses on academics:

Anyone attending the CUEE meeting expecting a plan for how unification of
the city and county school systems would work left disappointed. Instead
of discussing how the school systems might merge if CUEE’s campaign to
dissolve the Valdosta school charter succeeds during the Nov. 8 election
referendum, the Education Planning Task Force focused on its primary
objective: improving academics for area students.

So they have no plan, and of course they also have no control over academics.
If “unification” passes, that control would lie with

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Why can’t Winnersville have two great school systems? —Sam Allen @ VBOE 29 August 2011



CUEE has lost its framing. Nobody calls it “unification” but CUEE.
Everybody else calls it consolidation, same as for the last thirty years.
And Sam Allen is turning the tide against it.

Sam Allen, president of Friends of Valdosta City Schools (FVCS)
and former Valdosta School Superintendent said:

I promised myself three years ago when I left this place,
that one thing I would never do,
and that would come and attend another board meeting.

He said he came for a good cause this time.



The CUEE group is calling this unification all of a sudden.
And I think that’s just a play on words, and a play on our intelligence.
Because for thirty years we’ve called this process consolidation.
Now all of a sudden we’re calling it unification.



We’re calling it unification because the only thing that we want to change
is the central office.
We want all the schools to remain the same.
The only thing we want to change is what goes on right here
at 1204 Williams Street.



Well if you’re going to unify a community, something has to change.
This group has failed to put together a plan that we can follow.


And that’s the point, isn’t it?

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Yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011



This is an interesting way of dealing with arbitrary speaking time limits.
Might be worth trying in other venues.

Here’s

the video:




I yield my 5 minutes to Sam Allen of FVCS —JC Cunningham @ VBOE 29 August 2011

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.

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

-jsq

Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district —David Mullis @ VBOE 29 August 2011



I didn’t catch his name, but he David Mullis talked about his children and said:

All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.

…

The special ed program they have here is second to none.

Then he got to the night’s topic:

When I look at these things when people talk about consolidation,
I have to ask the question:
why do they want to consolidate two school systems?
The things that they say sound good.
I think everything they say would be agreab
What do they mean by them?
And I have a little bit of a problem;
whenever somebody wants to combine two groups together,
it almost looks like they want to control the whole.

And this little bombshell:

It seems like the group that is most pushing this thing
is referring to the Tennessee Hamilton County system,
which if you read their site, sounds like their statistics are good
and everything’s working good.
Except that there’s some data that came out a month ago
that says that they are,
the first time, the entire district is high priority.

…

That means they had two years of bad results.

There’s more in

the video:




Hamilton Co. TN is high priority school district @ VBOE 29 August 2011

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.

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

-jsq

Where was CUEE at the school board meetings?

If “unification” is about education, where was CUEE at the
last two days’ school board meetings?

Maybe we’ll see CUEE at some of

the three forums VBOE is organizing.
Maybe they’ll address issues such as
consolidation producing no improvement in academic achievement,
consolidation causing increased taxpayer expense,
and the need for any consolidation proposal to come from
educators and parents, and to be voted on by all the citizens
in the affected school districts;
you know, the issues

LCBOE just called them on.

-jsq

The most damaging useless thing —Craig Cardella @ VBOE 29 August 2011



Craig Cardella said his wife Anne
was a current Valdosta City Schools teacher and former Teacher of the year,
and he was a former city manager who had done community development all his life.

I can tell you without doubt this is the most damaging useless thing
I’ve seen proposed in many many years.
This will do more damage to our community than just about anything I can think of


short of a hurricane running through the middle of town.
It will damage both the county and the city school systems severely.
It will hinder the growth of the education of our children.
It will cause chaos among the city and county school staffs,
both of which are like this, because a lot of times they’re
the same people.

Here’s

the video:




The most damaging useless thing —Craig Cardell @ VBOE 29 August 2011

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.

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

More transcription; he’s just getting to the best parts:

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Celebrate the leadership that the BOEs have shown. —Karen Noll

Received yesterday on

Unanimous: LCBOE votes to oppose school consolidation. -jsq



This is truly a time for educators, and the families of students in our
communities’ schools to celebrate the leadership that the BOEs have shown.

That said, I would like to commend the LCBOE on the strength of
their resolution.
They not only state clearly that consolidating the schools
would not increase in academic achievement, but a large tax increase
would be expected. Another point that LCBOE included in their resolution
is that such a referendum should only be brought by citizens, families,
or educators.



Jame Wright also made this point in

his statement to city council last week.
Without the support of the educators involved, and
the families impacted, such a referendum question is just a big buck
political agenda on the ballot.

This town is still small enough to call this spade – money trying to
drive the education bus into the ditch.

Let me just say this-

NOT WITH MY KIDS’ EDUCATION, YOU DON’T!!!

Consolidation won’t improve education so I see no need for it ever —John S. Quarterman @ VBOE 29 August 2011



I see nothing in consolidation that would improve education,
so I see no need for it ever.

I got to the VBOE meeting really early, so I was the first to sign up to speak.
My main topic was to praise the Valdosta Board of Education for

putting
their agendas online in web-readable form (rather than entombed in PDF
as so many other organizations do).

Here’s

the video:




Consolidation won’t improve education so I see no need for it ever —John S. Quarterman @ VBOE 29 August 2011

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

Work Session, Valdosta Board of Education (VBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 29 August 2011.

Videos by George Boston Rhynes for

K.V.C.I.

Later I also complimented the chair for having
one of those rare objects,

a clock on the wall where everyone can see it so they can know how long
they’ve spoken already.

Thanks, George, for the compliments in the information on your YouTube video.
You were blogging long before LAKE.
Everyone please look at George’s blog,

K.V.C.I. Keeping Valdosta Citizens Informed.

-jsq

The school systems don’t want to consolidate —WALB

Jade Bulecza wrote for WALB today,

School systems oppose consolidation



Two south Georgia School systems don’t want to consolidate.

Hm, they noticed

yesterday’s VBOE meeting
with its
statement
and

today’s LCBOE meeting
with its

resolution.



Almost as interesting is what they don’t mention.
CUEE is not named; it’s just “a citizen group”.
And there’s no mention that both meetings were full of FVCS people
opposing consolidation, and not one single CUEE member willing to
speak up for it.
Less than two months ago, both WALB and WCTV named both groups
and

used words like “Talks Heat Up” (WALB) and “Showdown” (WCTV).
What’s changed, TV media?

-jsq

LCBOE resolution against school consolidation, read by Supt. Smith

Here is the text of the resolution against school consolidation



adopted today by the Lowndes County Board of Education.
It does not seem to be on their web pages yet.
First a video of Superintendent Steve Smith reading the resolution,
followed by the text of the resolution.

Here’s

the video:




LCBOE resolution against school consolidation, read by Supt. Smith

education, referendum, consolidation, statement,

called meeting, Lowndes County Board of Education (LCBOE),

Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia, 30 August 2011.

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

This text is my transcription of what was read.
I have added a few links.

-jsq

RESOLUTION

WHEREAS the Lowndes County Board of Education, Valdosta, Georgia,
met on August the 30th 2011,
to discuss positions regarding the consolidation of the
Valdosta City School System and the Lowndes County School System.

WHEREAS
the Valdosta City School System met in session on Monday

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