If TV cameras show up for football, why don’t they show up
“when the people come together on issues such as this,
not just black folk, not just white folk, but all Americans
are here tonight because of our concern”?
George Boston Rhynes made three points: Continue reading
The school consolidation referendum is already having ill effects more than
two months before anybody gets to vote on it.
The Valdosta School Board has had to postpone further work planning
for a new elementary school.
Valdosta School Superintendent Cason made what probably would have been a routine report about 11. A. Selection of architect for Southeast Elementary – Dr. Cason – information only:
However, since the referendum for consolidation made the ballot, it would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time.because who would buy them, knowing the selling school board might not exist come this November? Or, if the consolidation referendum passes, for some unknown time after that? So the board decided to postpone even selecting an architect until the consolidation question is resolved.
Here’s the video:
“It would be impossible for us to sell bonds at this time” —Dr. Cason @ 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.
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After dancing around the issue and muttering about “ugly turns”, the VDT finally gets to the point in its editorial of today:
Most of those questions do have answers: Continue readingWe still believe in school unification, but we can no longer support the current effort.
For the past several weeks, readers have asked us how unification would work. Would it change millage rates? Would students be bussed cross-county? Who would lose or keep their jobs? When would Valdosta City Schools dissolve its charter and the Lowndes County School System take over? What are the estimates on cost savings? Would it be more efficient? What happens Nov. 9, the day after the election?
We’ve asked these questions, too. No one can answer them.
The organization that worked to place the issue on the ballot has not offered satisfactory answers. Community Unification for Educational Excellence has admirably spent time proposing ways to increase academic performance if the systems are unified. But CUEE has yet to present a recommended plan for how the merger would work.
If the referendum passes, the school boards will decide how unification would proceed. And both school boards are opposed to unification.
It is this prevailing sense of the unknown that has spurred The Times to oppose the Nov. 8 referendum.
There are too many unanswered questions. There are too many uncertainties at this point. There has to be a better way to present this to the voters.
A vote for unification in this climate is a vote for chaos.
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 Continue reading
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| Mayor |
Brooks D. Bivins !
John Gayle Gary Minchew |
|---|---|
| At Large | Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton * |
| Council 1 | James R. Wright * |
| Council 3 | Joseph Sonny Vickers * |
| Council 5 | Tim Carroll* |
| Council 2 | Bruce Cain * |
|---|---|
| Council 3 | Ralph Clendenin *
Sherry Parham Brown |
| Post 2 special election |
Donald J. Bryan
James (Jim) Dew ! Becky Rogers (was held by Rodney Lieupo) |
|---|---|
| Post 3 |
Albert Hall !
Edwin R. Smith * |
| Post 4 | Anita Armstrong * |
| Mayor | Walker Keith Sandlin *|
|---|---|
| City Council At Large (Vote for 4) | Eric Schindler *
Ronald Carter * Paul Mulkey * Cathi Brown ! Russell Lane ! Sandy Sherrill ! |
|
Special election
voting now |
Cathy Brown
Sandy Sherrill Whoever wins will also have to run again in November. |
| Mayor | Cornelius Holsendolph *! |
|---|---|
| City Council At Large (Vote for 5) |
Alexander Abell !
Sam P. Flemming, Jr. ! Steven Koffler ! Jasen L. Tatum * Bill Wetherington * |
| District 4 | Dean R. Rexroth * |
|---|---|
| District 5 | Julian Carol Sherwood III * |
| District 6 | Bill Love * |
-jsq
| Mayor |
Brooks D. Bivins !
John Gayle Gary Minchew |
|---|---|
| At Large | Matt Flumerfelt
Ben Norton * |
| Council 1 | James R. Wright * |
| Council 3 | Joseph Sonny Vickers * |
| Council 5 | Tim Carroll* |
| Council 2 | Bruce Cain * |
|---|---|
| Council 3 | Ralph Clendenin *
Sherry Parham Brown |
| Post 2 special election |
Donald J. Bryan
James (Jim) Dew ! Becky Rogers (was held by Rodney Lieupo) |
|---|---|
| Post 3 |
Albert Hall !
Edwin R. Smith * |
| Post 4 | Anita Armstrong * |
| Mayor | Walker Keith Sandlin *|
|---|---|
| City Council At Large (Vote for 4) | Eric Schindler *
Ronald Carter * Paul Mulkey * Cathi Brown ! Russell Lane ! Sandy Sherrill ! |
|
Special election
voting now |
Cathy Brown
Sandy Sherrill Whoever wins will also have to run again in November. |
| Mayor | Cornelius Holsendolph *! |
|---|---|
| City Council At Large (Vote for 5) |
Alexander Abell !
Sam P. Flemming, Jr. ! Steven Koffler ! Jasen L. Tatum * Bill Wetherington * |
| District 4 | Dean R. Rexroth * |
|---|---|
| District 5 | Julian Carol Sherwood III * |
| District 6 | Bill Love * |
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.
And that’s the point, isn’t it? Continue readingThe 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.
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
All of my children have fourished in the Valdosta School System.Then he got to the night’s topic:
…
The special ed program they have here is second to none.
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.There’s more in the video:
…
That means they had two years of bad results.
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
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.
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