The City Schools of Decatur is reaching out to the community in a couple of different ways for feedback on their Superintendent search. From the CSD website…
The Superintendent Search SurveyPlease share your thoughts by responding to survey linked below. The survey will be open until June 3, 2015.
To access the survey: www.ecrasurvey.com/DecaturAs you respond, please remember that all characteristics listed are desirable, but we are interested in knowing your perceptions about which characteristics are “most important” for City Schools of Decatur.
Superintendent Search Community Forums
The consultant firm, Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, will facilitate four community forums to seek input on the most desirable characteristics and skills that our new superintendent should possess.The community forums will be held in the Board of Education Room at the Central Office at the Beacon Municipal Center located at 125 Electric Avenue on the following days:
- Monday, June 1, 2015 at 6:30 PM
- Tuesday, June 2, 2015 at 6:30 PM
- Wednesday, June 3, 2015 at 6:30 PM
- Wednesday, August 5, 2015 at 6:30 PM
The Board members, along with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, appreciate your willingness to participate in this very important process and look forward to learning your perspective.Thank you for taking the time to share your perceptions with the Board.
Could the new superintendents theme be “Doing More with Less”?
As much as I appreciate the IB curriculum, I would like a more “forward looking” superintendent that would provide alternatives to the traditional college prep approach for kids with alternative goals
Ideas
Asian languages – chinese, japanese, korean, arabic
Art/Design – autocad, html 5, photoshop
Film/Video/Music production
labs for maker/engineering projects
Small business / entreprenuership
except for Asian languages, pretty much everything you list is available via the career tech path. plus culinary and childcare. dhs graduates cohorts with associates degrees in hand every year. so those are more than “ideas” but actual realities.
In past years DHS students have taken Chinese (Mandarin?) classes at Agnes Scott.
These courses are indeed taught at the high school, but many are not “available” for most students. For those on the college track, a majority of a student’s schedule is filled with the requisite 4 years of math, english, social studies and science (in addition to 2 years of a foreign language), so there are few chances for electives, and then it’s a matter if the course is being taught during the open slot. Forget about any openings if they are in the IB program. Also, it takes a few years for foreign languages to be approved at the school. German was just approved this year, so students had to take both an approved (Spanish, French) language in addition to German for the past 2 years.
well, oakhurst dad asked for an alternative path to the traditional college prep. and that’s what dhs offers.
Tin Man – Apparently enough kids are able to take these classes, or else they wouldn’t offer them. Not going to have a teacher in a class with no kids in the seats. Maybe I’m missing something, but it sure seems to me DHS students have quite a bit to choose from, particularly for what has historically been a small school. It’s true that you can’t be on the college prep/IB track and expect to be able to have a whole ‘nuther alternative track. But that’s not the school’s fault, that’s the fault of not being able to have your cake and eat it too.
The survey seems a bit silly to me… All of the characteristics are clearly important. I feel like the purpose of it might be more to remind us all how complicated this choice will be and how difficult this process is rather than to act as an actually survey.
The open comment section might be the most important part. And the community meetings.
I agree. I filled out the survey but don’t see how it can be a very useful method to gather genuine community feedback on the superintendent search. The open-ended question is probably the most important part.
I get the sense that the survey is more about the ERCA search firm earning its paycheck than providing a thoughtful survey tool.
Totally agree! I thought it was a lame attempt to show the community they are involved in this search.
I know what the answer is going to be (and I’ve donned my bicycle helmet–the one I refuse to wear while actually cycling)), but I can’t help it, I think this needs to be asked: Is this really something that should be crowd-sourced?
This is actually very similar to what was done when Dr. Edwards was selected. There were a couple of community meetings as I remember it. I don’t think there was a survey but that was before online surveys were so easy to stand up and before everyone had access to the Internet if only through a cheap prepaid phone. Since I was new to the system, I found the community meetings useful because I only knew the issues relevant to kindergarten–size of bathroom fixtures, state limits on kindergarten size, etc. It helped to hear what were the issues were for veterans of the older grades, Renfroe, and DHS. Also to hear the Board’s responses. In my case, the process inspired confidence in the selection process and in the ultimate outcome.
Totally off topic, but why refuse to wear a helmet?
Actually, I thought it was a pretty good survey. For those who haven’t looked yet, there’s a long list of attributes, all of which are desirable, and the respondent is asked to prioritize eight of them. There’s also an opportunity for an open-end response. While I agree that the selection can’t be crowd-sourced, this can provide good feedback to the board on what’s important to the community. FWIW, the priorities I listed were (1) financial acumen (2) strong organizational, personnel selection and management skills and (3) an understanding and appreciation of the community’s values and expectations for its schools, including preparing students to live and work in a diverse world. I’m sure others will have different priorities, so get out there and tell the board about it.