DeKalb Co. School System makes progress with SACS

Goodish news...

"DeKalb has met or made significant progress on the "required actions" to regain full accreditation by SACS, including planning, instituting respect for the superintendent's authority, fiscal discipline and effective deployment of technology..." Read the rest @ AJC

The System still has work to do (its upgraded status is "accredited warned") but it is good to hear that progress is being made.

Parents say YES to the Druid Hills Charter Cluster

Please go to the AJC for the full report:

The petition for a charter school cluster centered on Druid Hills High School passed by a huge margin Tuesday. 

Not counting provisional ballots, there were 1,036 for approval and 94 against, said lead organizer Matthew Lewis. The 92 percent vote for approval “shattered” the 60 percent threshold required under the law, he said.  Read on @ AJC

UPDATE: also see the report on the Get Schooled blog.

DeKalb Superintendent releases 90-day action plan

To view the 90-day plan and other recent DeKalb County School System announcements, visit http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/. The plan lists five goals; for each, there is a descriptive paragraph and action items. The goals are:

• Address AdvanceED/SACS action items and work to achieve unconditional accreditation status;
• Develop and implement a balanced budget for FY 2014;
• Prioritize student academic achievement and career readiness; strengthen parent, adult
guardian and mentor involvement;
• Develop and implement a plan that will improve operational efficiency throughout the
district;
• Continue to rebuild trust with internal and external district stakeholders

Former Board of Education members request reinstatement

The AJC reports that four of the six DeKalb County Schools board members removed from duty by Governor Deal have requested reinstatement. As to the two who have not,

... Nancy Jester of Dunwoody, said she will not be petitioning. The other, former board Chairman Eugene Walker, could not be reached for comment. He is following another path that could lead to reinstatement: a lawsuit before the Georgia Supreme Court. ... The petitioning board members will next face an administrative law judge. The governor must wait at least 30 days after Friday to hold the hearing. Deal said if a petition reaches his desk, he won’t instinctively rule it out. Read the whole article @ AJC

Per comments made by Mark Elgart, president and CEO of AdvancED (which includes the Council on Accreditation and School Improvement: Commissions on Elementary, Middle, and Secondary Schools), "the district had begun to address some concerns and likely wouldn’t lose accreditation at the end of the year, even if it remained on probation."

Druid Hills Charter Cluster: survey

via Facebook

The Druid Hills Charter Cluster Committee is encouraging EVERY stakeholder (parents, teachers, citizens) is this area to take this survey about your education desires going forward. Have a say-so whether you support the charter or not! Feedback from the community is CRUCIAL in this process! Complete ASAP if you haven't already. Thanks! 

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/DHCC_Survey1

Charter cluster maneuver

In his AJC article "Druid Hills parents may use charter law to gain control over school cluster", Ty Tagami updates us on on how some parents are trying to improve local schools by taking more direct control over decisions that affect their schools:

The parents are empowered by a 2010 law that allows schools autonomy if they commit to improved performance. It was aimed at larger, mainly urban school districts, since many rural systems have only one high school. DeKalb is Georgia’s third largest system, with 21 high schools and 99,000 students. 

“It allows for decisions about education to be made closer to the student,” said Dan Weber, a former state senator who co-sponsored the law. “They know what their needs are, and the needs vary dramatically across a county as large as DeKalb.” 

The proposal for the Druid Hills cluster would make an International Baccalaureate program the centerpiece of the high school and at Druid Hills Middle. Five elementary schools are included: Avondale, Briar Vista, Fernbank, Laurel Ridge and McClendon.

As to the actual process...

The parents and staff at the affected schools must write a charter, then hold a vote with at least 60 percent approval. It’s up to those affected to determine how much autonomy they want. The cluster, which would not get any additional taxpayer money, can manage some services on its own while looking to the district for others, such as busing, food service and human resources administration. 

Read the whole thing @ AJC!

Governor to announce new DeKalb Board of Education members today

The AJC reports that

The governor plans to name the six replacements Wednesday, about a week after a nominating panel began poring through more than 400 applicants. Deal will choose from a list of 63 semi-finalists that includes former lawmakers, education experts and community leaders. ... A five-member nominating panel has been working since last week to vet the tide of candidates who put their names in, as the suspension has left the board all but paralyzed. The three remaining board members, who weren’t in office during the accreditation crisis, are too few for a legal quorum. Read the rest @ AJC

Update: new board members announced and their credentials.

Keeping up with DeKalb School System news

The AJC has created an index page for DeKalb School System articles. Here are some of the more recent items:

When news affects a family choice [March 9] 

Governor reveals names of candidates for DeKalb school board vacancies [March 7]

For ongoing discussions and reactions, also see

Getting Schooled (Maureen Downey's AJC blog) 

Parents for DeKalb Schools (Facebook)

Also reporting on recent developments:

Crossroad News

The DCSS website announces that the March 11 BOE meeting is cancelled and now features a Superintendent's corner statement.

Federal judge allows removal of several Board of Education members

Greg Bluestein at the AJC reports that

The governor said the court’s decision “allows us to take the next steps toward protecting the futures of DeKalb’s students and maintaining the school system’s accreditation.” The focus, Deal said, will now shift to a five-member panel that will suggest replacement board members. Read the rest @ AJC.

The unseated DeKalb BOE members can continue to fight the ruling at the GA Supreme Court. The federal judge "asked the two sides to agree on which questions, and gave them 10 days to submit them."

For continued coverage, visit the AJC's Get Schooled blog.

Updates from the MANA neighborhood meeting: cities, schools and neighborhood identity

We had a very informative MANA community meeting this week! Below is a summary of some of the topics covered.

Cities: One of the topics discussed at MANA's community meeting last February 25 was the cityhood movement and we were able to see the latest draft of the proposed city of North Druid Hills.

Proposed City of North Druid Hills
 (outlined in red). Click to enlarge or 
download file.

This is another example of the "city-lite" movement where cities are proposed to take control of a small subset of services (e.g., parks, zoning, public safety) while other services (e.g., water/sewage) are left for the County to handle. Waterworks is an important topic right now because DeKalb County has an aging system that desperately needs upgrades. One very real concern is that as more pieces of the tax digest are assigned to cities (via new cities or annexation into existing ones), the County receives a smaller slice of residential and commercial tax pie, and yet, is expected to continue to provide services for incorporated and unincorporated areas alike.

People are frustrated with the way the County is being run and cityhood offers a sense of control over critical services. But neighbors are also conflicted about so-called "self-preservation" moves that alter municipal boundaries and impact residents in other parts of the County. Some are proposing ways to address specific problems without "abandoning" the County, so to speak. School improvement may be such a mechanism.

Schools: Concerned parents have organized to explore a conversion charter school cluster for all schools feeding into North Druid Hills High School. MANA school liaison Tanya Myers explained that, while conversion of "traditional" public schools to public charters has been around for awhile, conversion of an entire cluster is a relatively new mechanism. Similar to other charter schools, some flexibility is given with respect to state and local requirements in exchange for a commitment from the charter to improve student achievement. An organizing committee comprised of two representatives from the seven schools in the cluster (Avondale, Briar Vista, Fernbank, Laurel Ridge,  McClendon Elementary Schools plus Druid Hills Middle and Druid Hills High Schools) has just been formed. Should this exploratory committee determine that it is worthwhile to move forward with the initiative, it will then need to determine how to frame the charter document. Attendance zones for each of these schools would remain the same, whether or not the committee determines that it should move forward with a request for charter cluster status.  See http://www.facebook.com/DruidHillsCharterCluster to learn more about this movement.

Regarding the updated draft 2 above, issued by the North Druid Hills Study group, notice that boundaries have been adjusted, following community input, to include additional areas served by North Druid Hills High School. Some side discussions at the MANA meeting raised the point that lines should be again adjusted to include the Medline LCI study area. 

Some of the topics
discussed in the CAN website.

Neighborhood Identity: The Civic Association Network (CAN) website continues to be the best source of information about the many issues currently affecting central DeKalb County. Although a lot of us are tired of hearing about cityhood proposals, annexation plans, and the sundry issues affecting the County, we must remain informed. With the upcoming redevelopment of Suburban Plaza, our proximity to so many large employment centers, and the approval of the Medline LCI revitalization study, our neighborhood is uniquely positioned. In the coming months and years, we will need to make decisions about the future of our area. Do people identify with Druid Hills, North DeKalb, the City of Decatur, none of the above? What happens if additional cities form around us and we choose to remain unincorporated?

Under CAN's Municipal Government section, you will find links to the websites of recently formed cities as well as some of the studies that led to their formation. You will also find proposals, maps and studies relating to these city concepts:
• City of Druid Hills [note that at press time, the above map is not posted yet]
• City of DeKalb
• City of Lakeside
• City of North DeKalb

Also visit the Clairmont Heights Cityhood FAQ for additional information.

DeKalb School System adds SACS accreditation page

DeKalb County School District has set up a page for documents relating to the current SACS accreditation debate, see http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/advanced-sacs-accreditation-review

DeKalb news roundup, via the AJC

AJC, keeping us informed!

DeKalb expects no new taxes, no new fixes
No plan for increased taxes in 2013, but it's not all happy news. Part of the concern is over no fixes for business licensing/permitting infrastructure that encourages and supports local business:

The result: Last year, the county took 42 days on average to issue a permit for a single-family home, the simplest type of construction. A permit for a new office took 99 days, or more than three months, according to county documents.

By comparison, officials in Cobb and Gwinnett say they issue permits for homes in two to four days. Nearly all commercial permits, no matter how complicated, are issued within a month.

Deal suspends six of nine DeKalb school board members
Governor Deal voted to suspend all but the newly elected members. Normally, suspension triggers a process where each member can appeal the suspension but since a federal judge has put a stay on any action until the DeKalb Board of Education's challenge is heard later this week, there's more waiting... while DeKalb County citizens absorb the costs of salaries and lawsuits:

Eugene Walker, the former school board chairman who is one of those pursuing the challenges, left little wiggle room. He vowed Monday to press on with the lawsuits, saying “We’ve done nothing wrong.” He said he might run for another term in 2014 if the courts uphold Deal’s decision, and defended using taxpayer dollars to press his legal claims.
“I’m using public money to help protect the democratic process,” he said. “What price do you put on liberty and justice?”

The "nothing wrong" refers to a SACS accreditation report so tortured that it led to the system being placed in probation and the state's Board of Education and governor getting involved.

DeKalb Board of Education fights back with successful federal court appeal

Ty Tagami at the AJC reports that

"A federal judge has issued an order that temporarily prevents Gov. Nathan Deal from replacing the DeKalb County school board members who were recommended for suspension by a state panel."

Current GA law allows the governor to

"suspend and ultimately remove any local school board that is recommended for suspension by the state education board because of risk to the local school district’s accreditation. The law authorizes the state to act only in districts that have been placed on “probation” by an accreditation authority. Read the rest @ AJC 

Governor Deal, who announced a press conference for 11am monday, could still recommend the Board's suspension but is now hindered from actually removing them from office. The article warns that a similar scenario arose in Sumter county las november and three months later, the legal dustup continues.

GA Board of Education votes to remove 6 DeKalb school board members

Ty Tagami at the AJC reports that

After a grueling 14-hour hearing that lasted until 10 p.m. Thursday night, the Georgia Board of Education voted unanimously to recommend suspending six of the nine members of the DeKalb County school board. Read on @AJC

Only the newest members, elected in 2012, were in the "stay" list.

The AJC previously reported that the DeKalb School Board had sued to prevent this vote from taking place, but they filed the lawsuit too late to prevent the vote. When the case is heard on February 28, we will know whether that lawsuit places constraints on how the Governor acts upon the state Board of Education's recommendation.

DeKalb School Board again faces GA Dept. of Education, Melvin sits

The AJC continues to cover the drama:

DeKalb school board to face charges by accrediting agency:

On Thursday, the nine elected members of the DeKalb school board must confront that evidence, which is based on anonymous interviews and documents that are mostly not identified specifically....That has spawned a lawsuit over the Georgia constitution that will be decided later. DeKalb sought a restraining order against the state, but filed it too late to affect today’s hearing. A Fulton County judge will consider the request next week. Read the rest @ AJC

DeKalb school board gets new leader

Retired DeKalb school system administrator and newly-elected board member Melvin Johnson got the nod from his colleagues Wednesday in a 7-2 vote. Johnson’s candidacy was uncontested: Nancy Jester nominated Pam Speaks, but Speaks declined. They both voted against Johnson. Read the rest @ AJC

DeKalb School Board sues, Eugene walks

The AJC reports that Eugene Walker has resigned as chair of the DeKalb Board of Education. The Board also voted to hire a lawyer (using taxpayer funds) to attempt to forestall suspension by the state following the Board's inability to meet criteria set by SACS. Please visit the AJC for their reports:

DeKalb County school board sues to avoid suspension, eliciting outrage from parents and employees

DeKalb’s Eugene Walker to relinquish school board chairmanship

Redux on Jan. 17 DCSS / GA BOE meeting

from Tanya Myers, MANA education liaison:

In what has been described as a "marathon hearing", the DeKalb County Board of Education met with the State Board of Education on Monday afternoon to discuss the findings in the SACs report that placed the county on probationary status. The County board had sought a reprieve until April to register significant progress on the action points described in the report. However, the state board seemed to find the system sufficiently distressed to warrant attention before that date and will review progress in 30 days with the option to vote on removal of DeKalb Board of Education members at that time. Meanwhile, the DeKalb school board has yet to elect a chair and vice-chair, having deferred that decision at their January meeting.

More info available at:

DeKalb board members defend themselves against accusations that could unseat them [AJC]

Can the DeKalb school board reinvent itself in 30 days? [AJC]

Parents for DeKalb County Schools live-twitted the meeting

State Board of Education to webcast meeting with DeKalb BOE meeting [Jan 17]

State Representative Scott Holcomb's website reports that the meeting will be webcast. The meeting starts at 1pm and you can tune in at http://www.gadoe.org/External-Affairs-and-Policy/State-Board-of-Education/Pages/Live-Webcasts.aspx.

Note that the GA DOE website states you will need Real Player to tune in...

Click to go to GA DOE website.

As to why the DeKalb BOE faces the GA DOE, see

http://www.ajc.com/news/news/dekalb-school-board-tries-to-hang-on-to-jobs/nTy33/

http://www.medlockpark.org/2013/01/ga-doe-summons-dekalb-co-school-board.html

http://www.medlockpark.org/2012/12/sacs-finds-little-evidence-of-boards.html

Schools Update

As previously noted, the DeKalb County Board of Education (BOE) has been summoned by the Georgia Department of Education to discuss SACS's recent decision to place the school system on probation. Recent Georgia law allows the DOE to make recommendations that could result in Governor Deal replacing BOE members.

As we wait for the results of the DOE meeting (scheduled for Jan 17), please visits these links that MANA education liaison Tanya Myers has gathered for us:

• Two current BOE members, who had in the past been vocal in pointing out irregularities in the Board's functioning, are currently blogging about their experiences:

Don McChesney's blog: http://blog.donfordekalb.com/
Denese Jester's blog: http://whatsupwiththat.nancyjester.com/

• Parents for DeKalb Schools has a Facebook page where you can join the discussion.

• School choice is scheduled to happen much earlier this year.  Per this flyer, open enrollment opens on January 14 and closes on February 1, 2013 (in previous years, enrollment happened in March).

Per the DeKalb School System's website (note: catalog not yet updated for academic year 2013-2014), 

Parents in DeKalb County have the opportunity to make choices regarding their children's public school education. The DeKalb County School District offers a variety of school choice programs to students currently enrolled in public schools, private schools, and home schools. Because there are several programs serving students in grades prekindergarten through twelve, a school choice programs catalog is available to assist in selecting a program that meets the needs of your child(ren). The programs are designed to address interests such as math, science, technology, performing arts, environmental studies, engineering, career explorations, world languages, and advanced studies.

School choice applications will be completed online at http://eportal.dekalb.k12.ga.us/. Parents need to create a login/password to access the website:

• The International Community School at Medlock is a public charter school that accepts new students K-5 via a lottery system; the lottery deadline is in early March. For additional information, see the ICS admissions page.

• The Hess Academy is a new private school at 611 Medlock Road. They will host a series of open houses in the near future; see their admissions page for additional information about their curriculum, tuition, etc.

DeKalb School System: discussions on proposed openings and closures

The AJC reports that DCSD is holding a series of meetings to discuss proposed school closure and opening plans.

Under the upcoming events tag, the DCSD website lists a series of School Organization Plan Community Meetings as follows. Unless otherwise noted, meetings run from 6-7:30pm

January 8, 2013 at Nair High

January 10, 2013 at Miller Grove High

January 15, 2013 at Tucker High

January 16, 2013 at  Dunwoody High

January 17, 2013 at AIC Auditorium (1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard · Stone Mountain, GA  30083)

January 22, 2013
8am: System-Wide Administrators Meeting
AIC Auditorium (1701 Mountain Industrial Boulevard · Stone Mountain, GA  30083)