Good Monday morning!
First of all, let me apologize for the length of time between my last BLOG and this installment. I have been watching the Legislature to see if there was a “Plan B” bill dropped as an alternative to the Opportunity School District Amendment that was voted down in November. Well, last Thursday on February 9th, HB 338 was dropped. To read the bill in its’ entirety please click here. If you don’t want to spend the time to read through the Therefores and the Thou shalts, I have added a summary below:
- A Chief Turnaround Officer (CTO) would be appointed by the State Board and report directly to them.
- The CTO will recommend personnel to serve as turnaround coaches for State Board approval. The coaches will assist schools identified as in the greatest need of help with ongoing assistance and input.
- Coaches will be assigned to one or more schools and shall assist in creating local collaborations to address personal and community conditions impacting student achievement.
- The schools will be identified based on the number of years they have received "an unacceptable rating and any other factors deemed appropriate by the Chief Turnaround Officer."
- Local boards can amend their flexibility contracts to agree to receive assistance from the state. Otherwise, the State Board has up to 60 days to implement one or more of the interventions in current law.
- Local boards that have no flexibility contract can sign an intervention contract to agree to receive assistance or the State Board will immediately implement one or more of the interventions in current law.
- Within 90 days of entering into the contract, a turnaround coach, RESA personnel, and possibly a third party provider shall conduct a comprehensive evaluation, make recommendations, and help develop an intensive school improvement plan.
- After 2 years, if the school is not improving, there are ten possible interventions including continuing the implementation of the plan.
- Before the implementation of any intervention, the local board can request a hearing before the State Board to show why the proposed intervention should not be implemented or that an alternative is better.
- An Education Turnaround Advisory Council would report to the State Board their recommendations on the qualifications and method of identifying and selecting the CTO. They could also submit names of potential candidates for CTO and turnaround coaches. The Council would be made up of the executive directors or their designee(s) of GSBA, GSSA, PAGE, GAE, and the President of Georgia PTA.
- A Joint Study Committee on the Establishment of a State Accreditation Process is also created in the bill. The Committee shall also consider the possibility of establishing a school board review commission.
- After five or more consecutive years of one-half or more of a district's schools receiving an unacceptable rating, the school board can be removed using the same procedures as are currently in place using the accreditation status as the trigger. If the local board is under a contract amendment or intervention contract and is in substantial compliance with the contract, this is stayed.
One of the major concerns is the creation of a Chief Turnaround Officer (CTO) who will not answer to the elected State School Superintendent, instead, the CTO will answer to the Governors appointed State School Board. There is not enough mention of collaboration between the GaDOE and the CTO. And lastly, everyone needs to know more about how this plan is funded.
Last night at our Board Meeting we honored a couple of groups. First, congrats to the CCMS Boys’ Basketball team for the Conference Championship. CCMS has now won both Girls’ Fastpitch and Boys’ Basketball Conference Championships. The second group to be honored were the CCHS Honor Graduates listed below:
Ashley Avila
Erica Barbour
Jordan-Lee Harris
Zaccaria Jordan
Kacey Smith
Quitamyen Frye
Geneara Corbin
Rayesa Shannon
Mark Hogan
KaShawn Baker
Emily Castrovillari
Timothy Bechtel
Shawn Johnson
Harlisa Lockett (STAR student)
Zachary Woods (Salutatorian)
Emily Baucom (Valedictorian)
I would also like to honor Mrs. Agnes Hollingshed for being named STAR Teacher.
I appreciate all the hard work the staff and administration is putting into assuring student needs are met.
