A Call for Questions – Decatur School Board Candidates Forum
Decatur Metro | October 3, 2011Deanne, who’s helping to organize next Sunday afternoon’s School Board candidates forum at the Church of Decatur Heights, is looking for community input. She’d like to know what questions y’all might have for the two candidates – Garrett Goebel and Peg Bumgardner – vying for John Ahmann’s vacated District 1 seat.
Write your questions in the comments section below and you’re question might just get asked by moderator Geoff Koski!
Additionally Deanne notes that Julie Rhame, Board member and unopposed District 2 candidate, is looking foward to mingling with folks and answering questions during the Meet & Greet afterwards.
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So…. does the silence mean that folks are putting a lot of thought into their questions before posting them? :0)
(I’m not above bribing folks with Swedish Fish. Please pipe up!)
Reece’s Pieces would work better for me. Unfortunately, I don’t have kids and whenever people here start discussing school issues all I hear is “Blah, blah, blah, fall break, blah, blah, rubric score, blah, blah Westchester, blah!”
Pretty good but even better is the vastly under-appreciated peanut butter Twix. Much better than the caramel, yet less popular.
Totally with you on this one.
LOL– just got flashbacks from The Far Side comic “What a Dog Hears” when I read that! J_T, you crack me UP, you do.
Are there other ways to submit questions for the candidates? I’m worried that submitting them here will lead to polarized comments that will not help the electoral process. So far, the District 1 election has a positive tone and seems to be about two candidates who truly want the chance to serve rather than a us vs. them campaign atmosphere.
P.S.: For good attendance at the event, may I suggest serving Swedish fish and Reece’s pieces?
I’m thinking there’s a big upside to sharing questions on here. If a comment leads to a discussion, that’s a good thing! It’s gotta be helpful for the CSD to know what’s on folks’ minds. ( If a commenter can’t refrain from acting ugly while expressing a concern, well, that says a whole lot more about the commenter than the CSD.)
You’re welcome to email your questions. It’s the input that matters most!
My email:
A pretty basic one but I want to hear their thoughts on continuing and even improving the great school system we have. I’m just closing on my new house this month and we mainly bought in the City so our son could go to CSD schools. We had a lot of other options out there as far as bigger and cheaper houses in other areas but we wanted the schools and the progressive nature of Decaturites (sorry if that’s not a real term, told ya I’m new) in general, to be our home. So, I’d like to know how future school board members are going to build on what’s already there.
PS.
I prefer Snickers or Kit Kats.
Candidates Forum and Meet & Greet
aka
Grown Folks’ Trick or Treat!
Y’all say y’all are coming, and I’ll gladly provide the candy! :0)
Ok I will ask one. What do the candidates see as a good use for the SPLOST money if it passes?
I see that the present school board would like an administration building if Westchester opens.
From what I’ve heard, we already committed our SPLOST revenues with the building of F.AVE. Or would there still be money leftover? From what I’ve heard–and I’ve love the real scoop–CSD is in deep trouble if SPLOST isn’t passed. We counted on paying off our F.AVE debt (some kind of complicated selling of the debt to a financial institution that then leases the school back to us) using future SPLOST funds. If SPLOST funds don’t appear, we have to pay off that debt using our operational budget which could be devastating.
That’s a good one myrtle. I’d also like to hear the candidates’ thoughts on SPLOST IV expenditures, should it pass, as well as their ideas regarding reopening Westchester and specifically what Westchester should be used for when it’s reopened (special ed, elementary grades, or other programs).
I just want to know if they are for or against parking on the grass at Westchester, calling trailers “learning cottages”, and if they know how to read a demographics chart.
Note that I am joking. JT sent his OTP rash over to my child and I have been stuck in a house with a sick and rashy four year old since 2:30 Friday afternoon. All I care about is that the doors are open tomorrow and that I am out of wine.
An OTP rash on an ITP child is really bad news.
Please take heed: If they start muttering anything that sounds like “Bloomin Onion”, “888.88” or “let’s turn the garage into a walk-in closet” in their sleep, take them directly to the most yuppie-hipster place you can -preferably on a scooter or (even better!) a unicycle – and forcibly make them appreciate the diversity of people, the incomprehensible art, and the feral cats with given-names of late 19th century poets for a minimum of 4 hours. (Dammit Swinburne get off the table!)
Once the child points to a nearby table and says to a young, thick-glassed gentleman – “you realize that PBR is made by Miller, right?” you’re good to return home.
Hmm, not sure how I could have transferred my dormant OTP-itis to Nellie’s kid, unless of course he was the one I had to “correct” for crapping in the middle of the toy park
If so, you’re welcome…
DM, I have no clue what 888.88 means but I’ve got to stand up for my Bloomin’ Onions (well, the restaurant at least, if not that travesty of an appetizer). When the Mrs’s salary depends largely on keeping the Outback/Bonefish/Carrabba’s folks happy and we are regularly supplied with gift cards for their fine food, I must ask that you keep your suburban cuisine mockery to the TGIRubyBees of the world. Plus, while it may not be “locally sourced” or “certified organic”, the wood-fire grilled ribeye is pretty darned tasty!
I’m with you on the PBR silliness. I do drink it when it’s cheap and I don’t want to spend $5 a beer because I’m having “more than one” and you just can’t get Schaefer around here, but the go-to is always America’s oldest family owned brewery, Yuengling! Just wish they’d distribute the damned porter in Atlanta!
As for the Bloomin’ Onion, you sound like you still might have traces of that rash in your system. I would suggest some locally sourced kale to eradicate the remainder. (JK, of course)
Um, I kinda likes me some Bloomin’ Onion…I should probably be ashamed, but I ain’t! (Hey, if one is gonna consume deep-fried crap, at least it should be tasty deep-fried crap, amirite?)
Life without deep-fried crap ain’t worth living. Like the old lady said, eating right ALL the time won’t make you live forever, it’ll just seem like it.
I think it’s funny that everyone is focusing on the OTP stereotypes and haven’t said a peep about the ITP stereotypes that I mentioned.
I thought your whole post was brilliant, especially the ITP stereotypes.
There is no way this horrific rash was born ITP and you are the only rashy OTPer in my line of site. You must be blamed.
Of course, it could be CSD’s fault. If they’d only open Westchester….
I can’t tell if you managed to replenish your wine supply…or you didn’t!
I’d like to hear more about how the Board will ensure we support our teachers. How do we make sure they hear their honest opinions and concerns in order keep strong and talented folks.
I fear the administrative demands are growing and class sizes are increasing while para support and salaries don’t keep pace.
I’m not a District 1 resident, but so far I haven’t heard much about this race and the election is less than 5 weeks away. Nothing like the election 2 years ago.
Real Questions – CSD will likely get a new superintendent in the next 1 to 4 years. What qualities will you look for in an applicant?
When current scheme was set into motion Decatur had issues with north vs. south of the tracks and black schools vs. white schools and dropping population. Now, the 3 majority black schools are re-purposed (CH and 5th Ave) or transformed by neighborhood gentrification that has displaced much of the blue collar black population (Oakhurst). One of our real issues now is the difference between the affluent families and non-affluent families and the impact to our system test scores. What are your ideas to address these changes and impacts to the system?
CSD is saddled with tens of millions in debt from CH and 5th Ave construction. If SPLOST doesn’t pass how do you plan to pay off the debt and continue to improve the system?
What is your relationship with the current administration? What is your relationship to current board members (and can you work with them?
I have issues with CSD’s stated goal of “closing the achievement gap”. I’d like to hear the candidates’ opinions on that goal, but political correctness will probably eliminate any substantive conversation on the matter.
I have trouble with that goal of “close the achievement gap” because it is not the correct goal and because it stereotypes students into white overachievers and black underachievers. There are many ways to close an achievement gap including some unfortunate ones like let the performance of all students slide so that there’s less of a difference between high and low achievers. I would prefer something along the lines of “Strive towards all students reaching their full potential”. There may be a better way to express that in Eduspeak. The idea is that there are some children who need special interventions so that they do not fail, others who need a push from “good enough” to “good to excellent”, others who function naturally at “excellent” but perhaps need exposure to more complex and sophisticated instruction, and brainiac children who need very special instruction, e.g. exposure to quantum physics at the Georgia Tech level or else they will shut down and zone out.
“Close the achievement gap” is a very commendable goal. By including it in CSD’s strategic plan, surely it means the CSD’s intentions are honorable. After all, this isn’t a community that’ll just let a missed goal slide! What are some approaches that y’all think might work?
I think that CSD has great intentions and is overall on the right track but has expressed the goal in an awkward and inaccurate way. If white student performance were to plummet, CSD would achieve its goal of closing the achievement gap, but not really accomplish what they want. If on the other hand, the goal is stated as all students reaching their true academic potential, then we might see modest gains in white student performance but a much greater gain among black students, resulting in a reduction of the achievement gap that mirrors CSD’s true intentions.
I think CSD very much cares about improving the performance of minority students but has some budgetary and administrative hurdles. IMHO, to make even more of a difference–and the recent SAT scores highlight that there’s still quite a gap–it needs to keep class sizes small at the elementary level, keep parapro support high there, and increase the number of students referred early for educational interventions and give them IEPs. But because of budget issues, CSD has been forced to move in the opposite direction of increasing class size. Some of the administrators act more like gatekeepers than promoters of IEPs. This may be penny wise and pound foolish.
The achievement gap needs to be redefined in terms of socioeconomic status. There are plenty of black students in our schools who are performing just fine. There are plenty of black or minority students who do NOT live in public housing. And there are plenty of white students who do not have college-educated parents. There are plenty of kids of every color who have learning disabilities that prevent them from achieving because they don’t fit into CSD’s mold.
We’ve got to stop labeling our children’s achievements based on race. I can’t believe we’re still doing that. THAT is the problem with this goal.
+1M
Excellent! Very well-said. In my mind, closing the “achievement gap” should just be trying to help lower-performing students succeed and improve, regardless of race or any other divisory category.
Last call, Y’all!
Thanks for all the good questions! (And the silliness! :0)