Academy at Smith moves into new space

From this week’s GCS Friday Spin…

Academy at Smith Opens on a New Campus

Excitement was in the air when The Academy at Smith opened its doors on a new campus this week. The school, which first opened in August 2006, was originally located on Smith High’s campus. The Academy at Smith features two academic/career pathways for students – medical careers and construction technology. The school provides relevance, rigor and much-needed relationships for students who are eager to distinguish themselves from the competition. Students complete core subject area classes and requirements for a high school diploma, but they may also earn dual credits during their senior year at GTCC. The new facility is located at 2225 S. Holden Road in Greensboro. For more information, please contact Principal Patrice Faison at 316-5866.

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Unlike the Northern High opening that also occurred this week, this opening was a little more subdued and quiet. Maybe it was due to all of the newsworthy construction debacles and cost overruns associated with renovating this building, which formerly housed offices for Oakwood Homes.

We wish them well.

E.C. 🙂

Western Guilford High now out of control

UPDATED…

My friends, it seems as though the situation at Western Guilford is now dire, and that school needs our attention now.

This week’s rash of fires, as reported in this morning’s N&R, was only a sampling of some of the other problems at the west Greensboro high school. Remember, we reported back on Dec. 18 that there had already been a series of troubling events there prior to December. Now, it appears as though things are out of control there.

The following is from poster “Big Tuna,” who commented on the other strand (thank you very much for your bravery and courage to post these ‘intel’ reports on what’s going on there–we NEED to know what’s going on, because the spin machine won’t give it to us); I’m reposting it here, because that school needs love, and like Grimsley, like Page, like Southern…like all of our other schools, we’re not giving these places the attention they deserve. School Board members (well, one in particular) seem to be more concerned about the color of the individuals commenting on saving the arts, while another is more focused on playing tit-for-tat politics with the county commissioners.

Priorities, people…

Tuna says:

Erik, this is the latest Western intel report. There was a bomb threat today. Police were called, bomb dogs walked through the school.

The school has been placed on indefinite lock down starting this morning and extending indefinitely. Students can’t be late for classes or they will be “written-up” and referred to the principal. Students cannot leave the class for water or bathroom. If it’s a bathroom emergency, the teacher must call the office and have an administrator come to the class to escort the student to the facility.

All hall bulletin board displays outside classrooms must be removed as two of these bulletin boards were set on fire this week and one scorched the ceiling.

A letter was sent home with all students regarding the incidents of arson this week and does not mention the girl’s hair being set on fire on Wednesday.

I’ll scan and email you a copy of the letter later this evening.

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This is a dangerous situation brewing there, and it needs to get fixed now.

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UPDATE: 2/2/08, 12:49AM:

Here’s a copy of the letter that was sent out to students Friday, detailing what happened there this week (click on it to see it up close and personal).

Also, we’ve been in touch with GCS Board member Darlene Garrett, who plans a visit there early next week. We’ve extended the offer to help in anyway we can.

E.C. 🙂

Rash of fires at Western Guilford

We predicted back on December 18 that Western Guilford H.S. would probably be the next school that we would be reading about.

We were right.

News & Record is reporting this morning that a rash of fires have been reported at Western; fire officials have been called out to the school three times to help put them out. All of them have been suspicious in nature, N&R reports.

N&R:

Firefighters have been called to Western Guilford High School three times this week to put out small, suspicious fires.

The fires have injured no one. Only one of the fires caused any damage, which a Greensboro Fire Department official said was minimal.

Firefighters responded Tuesday afternoon to a bathroom fire at the school at 409 Friendway Road. On Thursday, they were called out about 4 p.m. to put out a second fire in a bathroom. They returned around 6 p.m. to extinguish a blaze in a hallway.

Battalion Chief Bill Lentz said all three fires are suspicious, but he is unsure if they are related.

Anyone with information about the blazes can call Crime Stoppers at 373-1000.

Ridiculous.

E.C. 🙂

Super search gets underway

Your school board last night decided to officially start talking about a new CEO for Guilford County Schools.

The subject finally came up in the middle of the 10pm hour in what could be described as a rather strange Board meeting (it dragged on until 1am, with a two-hour closed session, chairman Duncan emerged and bad-mouthed County Commissioners, and two Board members were not in attendance).

Apparently, the Board wants to hold a meeting next week to discuss (hopefully in open session) what traits are important in a new school superintendent. The Board also plans to discuss how to hold public forums.

N&R excerpt:

The Guilford County school board also will talk next week about its process for meeting with members of the community and who will find and interview candidates. Member Darlene Garrett suggested hiring a facilitator to moderate the public meetings.

“I really believe we can do this (search) ourselves and not hire a search firm,” said [Anita] Sharpe, who is concerned about the names of applicants leaking to the public.

Ms. Sharpe, who still hasn’t announced her intentions whether she will seek reelection or not, is right on target. I would not support spending this kind of money.

I would even go one step further by slightly disagreeing with Darlene Garrett (which almost never happens). I believe we can find a professor within one of our many universities and see if one of them would volunteer to facilitate such a meeting. How about someone at Greensboro College, which has a pretty good school of education?

HPE excerpt:

The board has said it wants input from the public but will make the final decision on a new hire.
“As we start this process, we need to put our input on the table first on the kind of per­son we are looking for … ulti­mately it’s our responsiblity,” board member Anita Sharpe said at the meeting. “We need to send that message to the public … this governing body will do the hiring.”
Board members want to hold small meetings to gar­ner feedback from different factions of the community.

The Board can simply start here at this blog site:

My op-ed that ran in this week’s News & Record.

The call I put out for teachers to write in with their comments and suggestions.

Community input wanted.

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Keep in mind that we still don’t have a plan for Grier’s exit, and whether he will even have a exit package. And since last night’s meeting dragged on till 1am, no one made closing comments, so we didn’t have any reelection announcements from any of the Board incumbents.

E.C. 🙂

FOX-8 Chronicles SAVE GCS ARTS!

 UPDATED…

In a FOX-8 story last night, reporter Leah Beno profiled the grass-roots efforts of SAVE GCS ARTS!, which is working to restore every minute-every-second-every hour of lost art/music elective time in all of our elementary and middle schools.

Last night’s Board meeting was no exception, as the plan of having speakers there at every meeting is now being noticed, despite the GCS Administration’s recent retreat-recommendation of cutting more art/music elective time.

Click here to watch the piece.

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UPDATE, 2/1/08, 2:12PM: In watching the replay of speakers from last night’s meeting, once again, everyone spoke eloquently in support of the arts.

It is not a racial issue (Deena–who was absent), it is NOT an economic issue, it is NOT an issue for the county commissioners (for Alan pass-the-buck Duncan)…it is a curriculum issue. That buck stops on Eugene Street. Fix it, GCS.

E.C. 🙂

Duncan calls County Commissioners “Liars”

 UPDATED…

It was rather frightening to watch at 12:30am this morning. I thought I dozed off and was dreaming. But I wasn’t.

It was our school board, who after emerging from a two-hour closed session, reconvened at 12:30am to discuss (again) Eastern Guilford High School, specifically the Eastern-only Bond, and saying on-the-record that the County Commissioners promised to pay for the rebuilding of the school, bond or no bond.

The frightening part was watching GCS Board chairman Alan Duncan, who went into a 10-minute diatribe blasting and bad-mouthing the county commissioners, nearly calling them liars.

“They’re simply not telling the truth,” was the phrase Duncan repeated several times, in referring to recent published statements from the commissioners about the Eastern-only bond, and their recent vote a few weeks ago.

Coupled with Terry Grier’s recent FOX-8 interview, all they’re doing is stirring up bad blood between both boards, and someone is going to have to go in and clean up this mess.

Maybe…just maybe, it’s time to lock both boards up in a room, throw away the key, and force them to iron out their differences. Because right now, they’re acting like children…actually worse. My seven-year old acts better than some of these folks. It’s embarrassing to the county, it’s embarrassing to the state, and our children are the ones getting hurt.

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UPDATED, 2/1/08, 11:09AM: N&R has an updated story, as Duncan’s rant was in context with the Board “deciding not to stand in the way” of the County Commissioners adding an Eastern-only bond to the May ballot.

Joint coverage from Piedmont Publius here.

E.C. 🙂