Mr. Chris Billingsley writes in…

Retired DHS coach Eddie Fowlkes stopped by my room this afternoon. He found a 1951 copy of the Southern Coach and Athlete magazine that featured Decatur High School. The article described our sports history, like the 1947 state track championship and that the 1950 football team had seven players that made the National Honor Society, as well as information on extracurriculars such as the May Day program at Girls High.

Thanks to Chris’ close-up photos, you can read the full text of the feature article after the jump.  Lots of great pics too.  Make sure to check out the pic of the Girls High School building.

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The final of Decatur’s three Strategic Planning sessions took place from June 1st thru 5th, where residents were asked eight questions on the topic of communication.  In his Session 3 report, summerizer Otis White boiled down the essence of the eight questions to just these two:

How can the city strengthen connections between the city government and citizens and among the citizens themselves; and what roles should citizens, organizations and institutions play in improving Decatur?

From the nearly 70 pages of answers, White determined that the main concern of citizens was both a “desire for more information, delivered in different ways” and a “desire for more and different groups to be involved and effective”.

I scrolled through those 60+ pages of answers and noticed that some of the suggestions were things the city was already doing.  So I thought a quick recap might be useful to old-times and new folks alike:

• You can watch all Decatur City Commission meetings on Comcast Channel 25 live on Monday nights beginning at 7:30p.  (The production value of this is really quite good!)
• The City has three official blogs run and written by city staff:  The Decatur Minute (run by the Community & Economic Develeopment Department), Be Active Decatur (formerly 231 Sycamore) and the Decatur Tax Blog.
• The city also maintains a Facebook page and a variety of Twitter accounts: such as Downtown Decatur, Decatur HR, Decatur Forums, and DecaturNext (specifically created for the Strategic Plan).
• You can submit service requests – from complaints about barking dogs to requesting maintainable at many city-owned properties – online HERE.
• Decatur doesn’t just have a Code Red telephone alert system for “emergency situations”, but also one for “Weather Warnings”.  If you’re not getting either of them currently, you can sign up for them both HERE.

That’s by no means a definitive list of every Decatur communication tool available to you – feel free to chime in with others – but hopefully it gets a few more people in the know!

Get ready kiddos.  From the Decatur BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass website…

Mark your calendar for [Saturday] August 21, 2010, and don’t miss the 10th Annual Decatur Barbeque Blues & Bluegrass Festival, at Harmony Park in Decatur. The gates open at 4:00pm and there will be live music until 10:00pm. Kids 10 and under admitted free. Please note that no outside coolers will be permitted on the site.

Decatur’s 10th Annual BBQ, Blues & Bluegrass Festival is brought to you by three non-profit groups: the Community Center of South Decatur, the Oakhurst Neighborhood Association and the Decatur Recreation Department. All proceeds of the festival will be invested directly into the Decatur community.

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UPDATE: CSD’s Bruce Roaden provides a bit more detail regarding the “actions by YMCA staff…involving supervision of students”, which was referenced in the Superintendent’s letter…

During summer camp in 2009 (operated by the YMCA’s Summer Camp Staff) a student was unaccounted for at the end of a field trip when the group returned to the ECLC. The child was located and Y staff and the parent were in communication. After this incident training and staff changes were made.

On a subsequent NAEYC visit there were some transportation forms the Y staff had not completed correctly.

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Many parents have been writing in since yesterday afternoon reporting that a letter from Superintendent Phyllis Edwards was sent home with College Heights students yesterday announcing that City Schools of Decatur will end its relationship with the YMCA, which runs the 0-3 year-old and summer programs at College Heights, at the end of the calendar year.

According to the letter, the reason for the separation is that “some actions by the YMCA staff (particularly involving supervision of students) has put the school’s National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) at risk.

The Superintendent goes on to reassure parents that College Heights is CSD’s highest priority and that they are “already working on plans to find another partner to operate these programs or make the determination that it is feasible for CSD to operate the 0-3 program.”

You can read the full letter after the jump (thanks to a transcribing by one parent) or see the actual letter in PDF HERE (thanks to another parent) .

I’m going to follow up with CSD to see if I can get a bit more info on what sort of issues with supervision led to the concerns by NAEYC.

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