Wednesday's ELPC meeting notes

Hosting a dialogue among parents, educators and community members focused on improving our schools and providing a quality, equitable education for each of our nearly 100,000 students. Tyson said when the renovation started, she told "people" that they also needed to make sure the data center was included in that move, but no one listened to her and so it was not included in the budget. The data center was thus left behind in the now abandoned A&B, and it holds all personnel records, student records, vendor payment info, and the entire telecom system for DCSS (she added that all DCSS phones from every school connect back to the data center, including 911 calls, so they all have to route through there!). Additionally, the entire fiber optic network for DCSS runs out of there (she was very proud that DCSS owns it, and does not lease it like other systems; The money for it will not come out of the $40 million surplus, but out of 'contingency' [editorial: how is that not SPLOST money?], and they hope the sale of A&B will pay for it all (A&B are valued at $7.3 million, but don't expect to get that). So, using the proceeds from the sale to cover the cost is not possible, according to Turk.] --SACS report: a huge staff worked on it 24/7 for 45 days, said she will not hide the truth, and will give all the facts. Of the 243 DCSS policies and procedures that are in place, 4 of them occupied DCSS's time and attention. Her story is that normally they would give 30 days for comment, but that they wanted to get them approved and into the SACS report to show that they were making a good faith effort to move forward with revising the school policies (which have not been looked at since 2000). --Budget: DCSS will get $18 million from the $400 million GA got for the Jobs Education Act (stimulus to cover salaries and benefits at the school level). Board member relatives?) are worried that this will displace a number of DCSS employees, but the word is that many of them get hired back by the outsourcer (after they pass a drug test and if they are found to be competent). --Facilities & Operations: DCSS wants "Shared Leadership" in the months of September and October. That is when the BOE goes back to the community and presents the recommendations to the public and asks for further recommendations to go back to DCSS. [I haven't googled him yet.] Along with Dr. Humbolt's recommendations, DCSS will present their plan along with a STRONG marketing and PR plan. [I guess this is where Jeff Dickerson gets paid again.] I don't know if Dr. Humbolt's company does this also, but Dr. Tyson stated that DCSS is going to hire a 3rd party company to analyze every school in the system. What she wants to focus on is the following: Crisis management New culture of DCSS, giving more power back to principals. [I will add, in an entire hour of talking, she did not once mention academics, curriculum, or how to improve student achievement.] Faye Andresen did not ask a question, but instead spoke to the importance of getting county business and political leaders together to counter a possible negative SACS report. She pointed out that we do not want to become another Clayton County, and we do not want our high school students to suffer the consequences. A woman who identified herself as an Oak Grove/HMS parent said that parents want to know what they can do to help DCSS with their facility issues. Tyson responded that she will have DCSS work with every principal to set up meetings at the schools to present and discuss facilities issues (this sounds a lot like the old Need Assessment committees). He also asked why the schools that were heavily renovated or built new did not make AYP, while the schools that made AYP are old and unrenovated (ah, the guilelessness of youth). On the latter, Tyson said that there is no correlation, that schools were renovated or built based solely on safety issues (!), and it was just ironic that it worked out the way it did. Tyson wrapped up by admitting that communication between DCSS and parents is not good, and she said that once they get that fixed it will help with parent involvement.