NEWS ALERT: Principal Dunn Passes Away at conference

DEVELOPING…
From a News & Record Staff Report: A Guilford County principal died Tuesday while attending a principal’s conference at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, school officials and friends said.Leslie Dunn, 47, had been promoted in January to prepare the new E.P. Pearce Elementary school to open this fall.

Before that, Dunn had served as principal [...]

Ronald McNair…or Reedy Fork…Reexamined?

On tomorrow’s GCS Board meeting agenda:
As reported at the May 24, 2007 board meeting, pursuant to our procedure on the naming of schools (FDCA-P), the project team working on the new Reedy Fork Area Elementary School put out a recommendation for naming the school Reedy Fork Elementary School.
After reviewing the materials and hearing from members [...]

GCS Budget Battle: Social Workers Threatened

UPDATE BELOW… 
It’s not the top-heavy administration downtown that’s threatened to get any lighter, nor is Dr. Grier’s salary…it is the lonesome school social workers that will be examined (and possibly threatened) at tomorrow night’s GCS Board meeting (click here for the full agenda).
Check out today’s News & Record for this story…an excerpt:
The district’s more than 60 school [...]

Davenport Has Spoken

Local commentator and periodic News & Record columnist Charles Davenport frequently tells it like it is.
This past weekend, in his most recent column, it was no exception. It is a fabulous read, and I’ve posted it here, I hope he won’t mind.

Keep it simple, stupid: Reading, writing and arithmetic

“It would be nice for us to [...]

Smith Gets SMOD

Smith High School will join Andrews, Dudley, and High Point Central in implementing a “standard mode of dress” (SMOD) beginning in August. See today’s News & Record. See this excerpt:
Smith will require it for freshmen only as part of the phasing in of a reform that divides the students into small learning groups, said principal [...]

Layoffs Threatened

 ”They did us no big favors,” Supt. Grier said of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, who passed a lean-and-mean school budget at a raucous County Board meeting last Thursday.
Dr. Grier is threatening to slash vital positions as a result of that newly-trimmed budget. See this past Saturday’s News & Record for more.
Layoffs. Not good.
GCAE [...]

Grier Bad-mouths CoCo’s Over Budget

UPDATE BELOW… 
 **************************************
From today’s GCS Friday Spin:
Commissioners Slash District Budget
Last evening, the Guilford County Board of Commissioners approved a county-wide budget that significantly reduced funding to GCS for the 2007-08 school year.  In statements made during the meeting, Commissioners did not include education as one of the basic services of the county.  They under-funded our operations [...]

We Wish Principal Miller Well

A little-known retirement is about to occur at the end of June. And this retirement is notable.
Principal Vicki Miller, who heads Parkview A+ Magnet Elementary in High Point and a former administrator over at Ferndale Middle in High Point will hang up her school bell after 32 years.
She and I have had a chance to [...]

School construction takes shape in city: HP Enterprise

Today’s High Point Enterprise reports many school construction projects have begun to take shape or are in the finishing stages across High Point. Notable projects include expansion and improvements at Ferndale Middle; an increase in classroom space at Oakview Elementary; a huge transformation is in the works down at Parkview A+ Magnet Elementary with new [...]

School Bond Postponed?

UPDATE BELOW… 
The Guilford County Commissioners may decide tonight whether to postpone the school bond referendum until the primary election day next May, in order to get a larger voter turnout, today’s News & Record is reporting.
This may be a good thing, as referendums in off-year elections really don’t do as well. And while municipal elections [...]

2,300 schools face ‘No Child’ overhaul: AP

This is No Child Left Behind at its worst…2,300 schools nationwide face pending sanctions this year for missing federal benchmarks, according to an Associated Press article (click here). Schools range from high-poverty, high-impact schools to those found in sleepy suburbs and rural areas. That’s the damning part of it all…even missing one target and your [...]

DPI Briefs for 6/20/07

Some briefs from DPI:
DATE:     June 20, 2007
TO:          Subscribers, NC Partners
FROM:    State Superintendent June Atkinson
     Last week, the State Board of Education and I, along with several
Department of Public Instruction staff, once again traveled to Washington,
D.C., to present our views on No Child Left Behind to the U.S. Department of
Education staff and our Congressional delegation. The reauthorization of [...]

Remedial Math?–cartoon

Hopefully, none of our 2007 high school graduates will have to face a scenario like this:

E.C.

Values set Baltimore school apart: USA Today

Baltimore’s Talent Development High School, using the Johns Hopkins University model to help at-risk students is showing signs of success. See this USA Today story. See also the links here to other stories the USA Today did on this particular high school over the past few days.
A link to the JHU Talent Development H.S. program [...]

Teachers at targeted schools get university mentors: HP Enterprise

Educators (specifically new math teachers) at Mission im(Possible)-designated high schools in Guilford County will receive extra help from mentors at NC A&T State and UNC-Greensboro, according to a High Point Enterprise article today.
See this excerpt:
Tracey Howell, who coordi­nates a math project between Guilford County Schools and the UNC system, said the math initiative is an extension [...]

Putting the “Fun” in Fundraising

I had an interesting conversation the other day with Ray Riffe, the UniSERVE director over at the Guilford County Association of Educators/NCAE. Riffe, a one-time candidate for the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, said in small talk that he estimates the cost of a countywide at-large race such as the one I’m running for to [...]

Jamestown Middle Parent Advocate Speaks Out

A Jamestown Middle School parent advocate is speaking out on the school’s woes, and spoke recently to the Jamestown News (click here for the article).
Lori Farlow, the mother of a JMS 6th grader, has emerged as the leader of an active parents group to advocate for change at the overcrowded school which has seen a [...]

Peacemaker Interviews GCS Diversity Officer

A recent issue of the Carolina Peacemaker includes a feature story on GCS diversity officer Monica Walker. And there are some interesting quotes in this article.
Walker came to GCS, by way of her work in the community. She moved to Guilford County four years ago after accepting a position at Guilford College. For three years, [...]

GCS Friday Spin for 6/15/07

Click here for the GCS Friday Spin for 6/15/07. Of interest, a new principalship for the Academy of High Point Central, lots of internal promotions to assistant principals, and the annual scholarship list.
E.C.

Western Guilford’s “Newsweek” Ranking Changes

Kudos to News & Record reporter Morgan Josey-Glover for uncovering the finding of discrepancies of Advanced Placement data and notifying GCS of the issue (note, it was the N&R that uncovered the discrepancy and brought it to the attention of Guilford County Schools…yet, another definition of irony). As a result, Western Guilford H.S.’s ranking will [...]

Charter School Commission Convenes

From DPI:
*  Blue Ribbon Charter School Commission Convened
The State Board of Education has convened the Blue Ribbon Charter School
Commission to take a comprehensive look at North Carolina¹s charter school
program. The Commission will be charged to look at the types of charter
schools that have been successful, possible guidelines for approval of
future charter schools, and whether the cap [...]

DPI Teachers Message for 6/14/07

From DPI:
TO:        NC Public School Teachers
FROM:  State Superintendent June Atkinson
DATE:   June 14, 2007
     After many months of discussion, a number of public meetings, review of
hundreds of email messages and conversations by phone with educators,
parents and community leaders from across the state, the State Board of
Education last week approved the Future-Ready Core Course of Study for high
school students. [...]

News from DPI for 6/14/07

Lots and lots of news from the state’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI):
*  Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability to Meet
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Testing and Accountability will meet Monday,
June 18, from 10 a.m.-3 p.m., in the 7th Floor Board Room, Education
Building, 301 N. Wilmington Street, Raleigh. Representatives of a number of
professional associations, the [...]

Violence Being Reported in our Elementary Schools: Rhino Times

Irving Park Elementary, McLeansville Elementary, Lindley Elementary and Jamestown Middle are all examples of schools where incidents of violence and discipline problems are alarmingly on the rise. See this article in this week’s Rhino Times.
The article says most of the incidents involve students diagnosed as behaviorally-emotionally disabled (BED) which is an exceptional children category. parents [...]

The Rhino Times’ Annual School Salary Survey

School staff are public employees. And as such, their names and how much they make are public information.
In Guilford County, our friends at The Rhino Times graciously publishes the salaries of these GCS employees annually. Here’s the link to this week’s article.
Some things to note right off the bat…some of the salaries are inflated because [...]

More On Those State Writing Test Results

Good morning folks.
Here’s more on those preliminary state writing test results we told you about a few days ago (click here for that previous blog entry). We have the chart showing how Guilford County students fared. 4th graders showed an increase in proficiency, while 7th and 10th graders showed an overall decrease. Click here for [...]

Half-a-billion Bond Referendum Goes to CoCos

The school board last night passed its nearly-half-a-billion-dollar bond referendum. On an 8-3 vote (Board members Dot “cold-cash” Kearns, Amos Quick, and Deena Hayes voted ‘nay’), the proposed referendum now goes to the County Commissioners for their approval before it goes to the voters in November. Considering the commissioners still haven’t passed the county budget and [...]

State Board of Education Travels to DC to Lobby for NCLB Changes

From DPI:
State Board of Education Travels to Washington, D.C.;
Reauthorization of NCLB Focus of Trip
State Board of Education members and key leaders from the NC Department of
Public Instruction will take a bus ride to Washington, D.C. tomorrow to meet
with members of the state’s Congressional delegation and top U.S. Department
of Education staff. The message they carry with [...]

Finch Survives, but will Ferndale?

The News & Record’s Jeri Rowe, this school year, highlighted the successes and trials of Kate Finch, a first year 6th grade language arts teacher at High Point’s Ferndale Middle School. See previous blog entry about Finch here.
See this excerpt from Rowe’s final column on Finch here:
Of her 56 students, only five failed the reading [...]

New Links Added to the Blogroll

I’ve added some choice sites to the blogroll/links section, located on the right-hand side of your computer screen. These sites are well worth the time and effort in reading.
1. North Carolina Community Advocates for Revitalizing Education (http://www.nccare.org/index.htm)…This organization, according to their website, was developed by parents, community members and the Education and Law Project of [...]