Andrea Berry at Decatur edTV hits one out of the park with two portraits of families who were recently homeless and send their kids to the City Schools of Decatur.

View the video here.  Quite a moving segment.

There’s an awful lot of good that goes on in this city that we don’t hear about nearly enough.

Don’t forget about Decatur edTV’s School Board Candidate Forum tonight from 6:30p-8:50p at Westchester!  All the school board candidates will be there!  David Hughes and Lew Lefton will moderate the event.  Here’s the schedule from Decatur edTV’s website…

Program:

6:30 pm to 7:20 pm

Doors will open at 6:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the District 1, Post A Candidate Forum to be seated.

7:30 pm to 8:20 pm

Doors will reopen promptly at 7:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the At-Large Candidate Forum to be seated.

8:30 pm to 8:50 pm

Doors will reopen promptly at 8:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the District 2, Post A Q&A Session since there is only the incumbent on the slate.

On Thursday, October 29th, Andrea Berry’s Decatur edTV will host three, count them THREE, school board candidate forums in Westchester’s Board Auditorium.  Valarie Wilson, Rob Pope, Marc Wisniewski, Garrett Goebel, and Bernadette Seals will all be participating.

The forum will be moderated by David Hughes and Lew Lefton.

6:30 pm to 7:20 pm

Doors will open at 6:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the District 1, Post A Candidate Forum [Wisniewski/Goebel] to be seated. This portion will run from 6:30 PM to 7:20 PM.

7:30 pm to 8:20 pm

Doors will reopen promptly at 7:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the At‐Large Candidate Forum [Wilson/Pope] to be seated. This portion will run from 7:30 PM to 8:20PM.

8:30 pm to 8:50 pm

Doors will reopen promptly at 8:20 PM to allow those interested in attending the District 2, Post A Q&A Session since there is only the Incumbent [Seals] on the slate. This portion will run from 8:30 PM to 8:50 PM.

More details (and pics of the moderators) can be found in this flyer HERE.

Here’s a round up of recent offers, events, and specials that I’ve gathered up recently…

• The latest’s Sawicki’s newsletter announces that Lyn is now carrying local Johnson Family Farms whole milk for only $3.65 a half-gallon. (From my own observations, that’s cheaper than organic from the grocery store) and selling eggs from her own backyard chickens for 40 cents each.  Also Sawicki’s is doing a poll on perishables over at its website.  Head over and give a little quick feedback.
• Tastings will host an Inauguration Party next Tuesday from 6p-whenever.  There will be Inauguration-themed trivia, beer specials, buckets of beer, 1/2 off Pilsner Urquell, food specials, ½ off sandwiches, ½ off house wines and themed cocktail.
• Decatur EdTV is now offering a new monthly newsletter (pdf) to help residents stay up to date with the charter school process.  Andrea says hardcopies might also soon be available around town.
• Whit’s End is in the midst of a Winter Clearance Sale.
• Poetry Atlanta comes back to Wordsmiths’ stage this Saturday at 2pm.

Business owners – if you have any other upcoming events/sales/new offerings, send them along and I’ll add ‘em to the list.

Decatur edTV continues to do the in-depth reporting we’ve come to expect, with a series of video interviews with the newly-elected members of the Parent Leadership Teams across the city’s schools.

First up: David Hughes – DHS Senior Parent and Lawyer

UPDATE: The extension wasn’t due to a lack of candidates.  Winnona Park’s principal was good enough to fill us in.  See comments below.

So remember that whole charter school system thing we did a few weeks back? Yeah well…apparently they don’t have enough parent volunteers to be on the vitally important “leadership teams”, because they’ve extended the deadline until tomorrow, according to the AJC.

Yeah I know, not much notice…but I didn’t post it…it was the AJC. Also, since each school is supposed to have its own leadership team, which are we talking about here?

These teams aren’t just advisory groups…they are key component of the charter school idea. So the fact that they have to extend the deadline is a bit worrisome. The AJC article says check out the school system’s website for details…but I’m not going to link you over there because unless they mean for you to go ahead and flip thru the massive charter school application for a description of the leadership teams, I don’t see any easily accessible information.

So instead I suggest jumping over to this great leadership team FAQ (pdf) on the Decatur edTV website and watching this video from Decatur edTV if you are interested in joining any of our schools’ parent leadership teams.

As reported by Decatur EDtv, 5th and 10th graders at their respective Decatur schools didn’t meet the “No Child Left Behind” standards (known as Adequate Yearly Progress or “AYP”) in math this past year.

EDtv followed up with Decatur Associate Superintendent Dr. Thomas Van Soelen about the District’s new Math Improvement Plan being implemented this coming school year.

If you still have unanswered questions post-video watching, you can also view the actual plan on Decatur EDtv’s website at the bottom of the page.

So, what happens when a school (or two) doesn’t make “Adequate Yearly Progress”? Well luckily, there are no consequences for not making AYP for one year, according to Georgia’s AYP website. However, if it happens for two consequetive years across the district (like this year), the district is labeled “Needs Improvement”. A “needs improvement” school is not a “failing school” according to the state, but is required to develop an action plan to turn things around after two consecutive years of not making AYP, and implement it after three years.

It sounds like Decatur has already developed and will implement a plan after just one year of not making AYP.

We expect nothing less, even if the 23% drop county-wide drop seems to speak more to the inadequacies of changes to the test, rather than the inadequacies of our students.

[h/t: InDecatur]

On its first day, Decatur eLife’s new online education channel “Decatur EDtv has an excellent 9 1/2 minute summation of Decatur’s charter school journey up to the recent approval by the state. The telecast features extensive interviews with CSD Superintendent Dr. Phyllis Edwards, GA Dept of Education Charter Schools Office Director Andrew Broy, and GA Rep. Stephanie Benfield.

Even for someone like me that’s followed this process so closely, this was a very informative video. I especially appreciated the insight from the Charter Schools Director.

The next episode promises to detail the new roles within Decatur’s “Shining Star” Charter System.

How many school systems have a video channel dedicated to keeping parents and citizens informed about goings on at the public schools? I, for one, think its pretty cool.

P.S. There’s also a few other school related video’s already on Decatur EDtv’s main page if you’re interested.