School Board Plans SACS Training

As part of its upcoming training, the unanimously determined at Tuesday night’s meeting that it will participate in a three-hour information session about the regional accreditation agency, Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.

Board member Mike Miller made the suggestion based on the planned March visit by SACS.

All schools and districts, as part of SACS’s regular accreditation requirements, must host a visit every five years and the March visit to the Douglas County School System is part of that, SACS Communications Vice President Jennifer Oliver said. The visiting team will include educators from around the country.

Douglas County was last accredited by SACS in 2007, Oliver said.

Board members will individually determine how they plan to use the remaining six hours of required training, which was increased recently by the state.

Superintendent Gordon Pritz said the board must submit a plan of its “Governance Team Training” by Oct. 1 to the state and complete the training by June 30. The board will vote on its training plan at the Sept. 19 meeting.

Early in the meeting, Deanna Morris Haney addressed the board during the public comment portion. The 1981 Douglas County High School graduate said her alma mater “has been neglected over the years.”

When board member D.T. Jackson asked Haney to specify what areas needed addressing, she listed the theater, the outside of the building, roof, restrooms and gum on the sidewalks.

However, later in the meeting, Facilities and Maintenance Chief Operations Officer Dudley Spruill questioned Haney’s "neglected" comment.

Jackson sparked Spruill’s response after the fiscal year 2013 Capital Outlay application only listed replacing the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system at the Mashburn building at Douglas County High, the district’s oldest high school.

“I’d be more than happy to submit to the board all the Capital Outlay projects done at Douglas County High School over the last four to five years,” he said. “I know it’s in the hundreds of thousands.”

The renovation and modification of and middle schools, the re-roofing of and Burnett Elementary School were the other projects listed on the fiscal 2013 Capital Outlay Program application.

The Georgia Department of Education is anticipated to reimburse the district a total of $3,286,910 for the upcoming construction projects.

Also at the meeting, the board voted 5-0 on the agreement to conduct a special election for the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) on Nov. 8 and renewed the district’s dental insurance plan with Ameritas.

Members also agreed that Pritz could write a letter in support of a walking trail on district land at the Chestnut Log Soccer Complex as part of the Livable Centers Initiative.

The board discussed several other issues during the 128-minute meeting. These included:

• Chief Financial Officer Kay Turner informing the board that the district would be losing about $60,000 on its sale of surplus computers—1,978 desktops and 752 laptops—after the first two bidders were unable to meet district’s financial requirements. Etowah Computer Sales Inc. of Canton will reimburse the school system $204,381.50 for the units, which are out of warranty. Turner said the district wanted 50 percent of the bid offer up front. “In this economy, we didn’t want the computers to leave on us and not be able to collect,” she explained.
• The dual enrollment agreement with West Georgia Technical College in which the college will provide required textbooks for students and the district will reimburse the college $14.25 per credit hour for the 147 students enrolled in the program. The figure represents the amount of tuition not covered by the HOPE Grant. Turner estimated the first semester reimbursement total for the district at $15,000. “It’s our way to help cover students and if we didn’t pay this some of these students wouldn’t be able to attend this program,” Turner told the board.
• A presentation by Human Resources Director Michelle Ruble on the new personnel evaluation system required by the Georgia Department of Education. Certified staff will have 28 standards used for evaluations and administrators will have 10. Classified employees will have job specific reviews based on clearly stated duties.
• Mitzi Teal, the executive director of Douglas County’s Communities in Schools, gave a presentation on the 21st Century Community Learning Center After-School Program grants. She said Douglas has 22 schools participating in the after-school programs—13 elementary, seven middle and two high schools. In the 2010-11 school year, 1,149 students were enrolled in the after-school program. Factoring the continuation awards of existing grants through 2014, the district will have been awarded $15.5 million overall. Teal said Douglas County’s 21st Century Community Learning Center After-School Program is highly regarded throughout the state.
• The contributions of the BRIDGES SLC program (Building Rigor In Douglas to Graduate Every Student in Smaller Learning Communities) were highlighted by Project Director Mandy Johnson and Grant Coordinator Ruby Byers. Some of the 2008 to 2011 highlights included, 64 percent of the students who entered the after-school tutoring passed their course, more than 350 students participated in Shadow Day and 1,695.5 credits were recovered in 2009-2010 to help students graduate from high school.