Heather writes in with details about an April 1st “Internet Safety Event” at Decatur High School…

Decatur High School Theater, Thursday, April 1st, 6:30-7:30 p.m.,  Free childcare- registration info below!

The City Schools of Decatur, in partnership with the Decatur Children and Youth Services, invite all parents and community members to attend a program entitled “Internet Safety and Social Networking in the Digital Age” at Decatur High School on Thursday, April 1st, at 6:30 pm. Hoke Wilcox, Ed.S., an Instructional Technology Specialist from the Educational Technology Center at Kennesaw University, will be our presenter for the evening.

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Press release from Decatur High School’s Jon Reese…

Celebrating Creativity at Decatur High School

Thursday, April 15, 2010 at 7:00 p.m. Decatur High School Performing Arts Center $5 adults, $3 students (18 and under)

This event will showcase student creativity through visual arts, creative writing, dramatic scenes, instrumental and vocal performances, photography, and video shorts. An extended intermission will feature delicious samples from culinary arts students. This is a terrific opportunity for the city to see first-hand how the arts are alive and growing in the new performing arts center at Decatur’s flagship high school.

Photo Courtesy of Jon Reese: “Junior Nia Cole paints set pieces for the new theater’s first drama production, William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley reports in…

More than 25 DHS students and Close Up Club members volunteered to help at the Decatur Education Foundation “Tour Decatur”. Former principal Bill Funk was there, still supervising students. DHS grad and CoD police officer Antwain Acker kept the crowd under control. He was assisted by master maintenance supervisor Clarence Strickland, another DHS grad. I saw two more DHS grads running the race, Intown Hardware owner Tony Powers and his beautiful wife. Jason Carter and family were there. So were AJC writers Bo Emerson and Maureen Downey. A great time was had by all.

Back in August 2009, the City Schools of Decatur adopted a new grading policy (see Action Item C), which would increase the use of International Baccalaureate assessment for learning in Decatur’s school district.

The new methodology contains many components, including a new, vast evaluation method, which assesses a student’s performance on a wide variety of tasks (compositions, essays, research, presentations, etc.), teacher assessments (observation, selected response, collected response, etc) – and the use IB rubrics, anecdotal records,  models and checklists to evaluate student achievement, among others.

However, one piece of this vast puzzle of acronyms and educational buzzwords has received a majority of the attention in the halls of Decatur High School.

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Poster courtesy of The Decatur Minute.

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley writes in…

Attached are some pics of students using your blogs. …Students were suppose to post comments using my email address. All found interesting stories on all three blogsites. I hope to have all comments posted by Wednesday.

Many students replied to your recent comments on their trip to the Capitol.  You can read through them HERE and HERE.

At next week’s Tuesday Board Meeting, the City Schools of Decatur Board of Education will vote to approve a plan (see Action Item B) to sell its kitchen cooking oil to Clean Energy Biofuel for 25 cents a gallon. A quick look at the company’s website shows that Leon’s Full Service and many other well known Atlanta businesses and restaurants are already Clean Energy clients.  Decatur High looks to be the first school on the list of clients.

As the summary below notes, this new agreement not only saves CSD money, it also supports a growing sector of the alternative energy industry.

Considering our economic climate it pays to be forward thinking. Currently, the used kitchen oil that our school produces is being taken away and disposed of by Griffin Oil at a charge. Clean Energy Biofuel, LLC is offering to pay CSD for our oil and recycle it. In addition, we would be supporting an environmentally and economically friendly fuel industry.

CEB (Clean Energy Biofuel) is all about biofuel. They collect, produce and distribute biodiesel. CEB is a wholly owned subsidiary of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, which is a regional non-profit organization focused on environment and energy policy. CEB has operations in Atlanta and Knoxville, TN. They are eager to expand their operations by incorporating DHS.

CEB is offering to provide DHS with an oil storage container and make pickups on request. They also pay for the oil they collect by the gallon. CEB already collects from many businesses across Decatur and Atlanta. The used kitchen oil, once collected, is transported to their plant in Knoxville, TN where it is converted to biodiesel to ASTM specifications. The biodiesel is sold to fleets via wholesale distribution and to passenger cars via retail kiosks.

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley writes in…

Georgia Close Up day one was successful- except for the lame lunch, a middle school group (Yuk- Eighth Graders!), walking in snow in flip flops, and a fussy teacher complaining about students not paying attention (These were student comments). When I returned and crashed in my classroom, a teacher came by and asked, “How did it go?” I told her, “Fine. I got everyone back alive. No one got sick and threw up. And everyone ate something for lunch (although there were a few complaints about ” no real chefs”. After thirty-three years of teaching and field trips, my expectations are not as high as in 1976.

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Looks like much of the city’s who’s who were on hand for Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle’s visit this morning!

DHS teacher Chris Billingsley reports…

Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle toured the new fine arts and gym facility at DHS today. He later met with students from the vocational program. Lieutentant Governor spoke to Decatur officials, board members, CSD administrators, students and teachers about Georgia’s charter school movement and improving vocational education. Mr. Cagle reviewed the plans for the renovation of the vocational building (designed by DHS students from Mr. Jim “Big Jim” Streeter’s drafting class) and ate a delicious meal prepared by Ms. Dana Kinney’s culinary arts students. Congratulations to Mr. Duane Spurell, Ms. Kinney, Mr. Streeter, and all others that helped make this renovation possible.

This morning the Georgia Department of Education announced that Decatur High School ranked as both an “AP Merit School” and an “AP Challenge School” in 2009.

• To qualify as an “AP Merit School” a school must have “at least 20% of students taking AP exams and at least half of the AP exams scoring a 3 or higher.”
• To qualify as an “AP Challenge School” a school must have “fewer than 900 students” and offer “AP classes in the four core areas of English, Mathematics, Social Studies and Science.”