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Schools

Representative Scott Holcomb Speaks to Tucker Parent Council

Monday night's meeting focused on legislation pertaining to education.

Tucker Parent Council held its monthly meeting at on Monday night. Representative Scott Holcomb was the guest speaker, and he discussed current legislation pertaining to education in DeKalb County and in the state. Holcomb focused on two key issues that the legislature is working through currently: DeKalb Board of Education redistricting and charter schools.

Holcomb is part of the five-member subcommittee charged with recommending how the BOE reduction and redistricting should be handled as a result of SB79, which passed last fall and requires that school boards be comprised of no more than seven members. Last week, the committee reviewed two maps, with three votes going to what’s come to be known as the 5-district “Mosby Map” and two votes going to the seven-district “Oliver-Benfield Map.”  The Mosby map then went to the DeKalb Delegation but did not pass. 

Holcomb expressed several frustrations with the process, saying that what happened is “disappointing, although not surprising.” In what he called a rushed process, one public hearing was held in Decatur and several maps were later presented. Holcomb mentioned maps from board members Paul Womack and Nancy Jester, as well as Senator Steve Henson and Representatives Howard Mosby and Mary Margaret Oliver, among others. Holcomb said it wasn’t clear what happened to the other maps and why only two were presented at last Wednesday’s meeting. The subcommittee will meet again this Wednesday to try to reach a consensus.

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The assumption seems to be that the five (or five of the seven) seats will be held by the five school board members who aren’t up for reelection until 2014.  Concerns were raised by members of the Tucker Parent Council about districts being drawn to accommodate those members, despite the fact that the districts would no longer represent the population that elected the board members in the first place, and that one of them is an at-large “super district” representative who doesn’t actually represent a current “district” on the map. 

When asked about a referendum, Holcomb said that he supports having one on the July 31 ballot, leading to a full school board election in the November general election, but he worries that DeKalb County as a whole isn’t engaged enough in the school system to have a referendum pass.  He encouraged concerned citizens to contact members of the DeKalb delegation as soon as possible letting them know which, if any, of the maps they are in favor of, whether they support a referendum, etc.

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Moving on to the charter schools issue, Holcomb gave a brief update on the current status of charter schools in Georgia. Charter schools were grouped in with “special schools” (which include schools for exceptional students, adults, the blind and deaf, vocational schools, etc) in a supreme court decision last year that struck down the state’s ability to establish those schools and thus provide funding for them. Eleven charter schools, Ivy Prep in Gwinnett County among them, were left in limbo as far as funding is concerned, with it being left to the state and local governments to determine that. 

Holcomb, who ran for an office strongly because of his passion for education, reiterated prior statements that the United States is 26th in the world in terms of education, and Georgia falls at the bottom within the United States. “We need smart people,” he said, and “I support charter schools, but I don’t want to see charter schools pitted against public schools in terms of funding. We need to look at how state funding of charter schools will effect public schools,” being especially vigilant about schools in the more rural parts of Georgia, as most charter schools are centered around metro areas. 

HR 1162, the “charter schools resolution,” failed last week by a margin of 10 votes. Holcomb believes that its supporters tried to push it through too quickly.  A vote for reconsideration of the bill did pass, though, meaning that it can be looked at again. Holcomb has authored another bill concerning charter schools, HR 1335, which creates a separate paragraph for charter schools (separate from special schools) and provides for state funding of them. He’s also working with the authors of HR 1162 in the hopes of getting it to a place where it can be passed. 

Holcomb mentioned that Georgia has received a lot of funding through the Race to the Top grants, and that they support charter schools, in general.  Future Race to the Top dollars could depend on this bill and how it’s written, he said.  “I want to get to a place where we can have charter schools work and be successful,” he said, “but we have to be careful not to undercut our public schools. State funding could be a win-win.”

Following the charter schools discussion, the talk circled back around to the Board of Education redistricting. Caroline Lord, a Tucker resident who was very outspoken during the school attendance redistricting last year, made the point that “we need to look at the whole county, not just our individual districts. Our money goes to the county and to the state, not to our individual schools. In order to fix this, we need to look at everything. Each district needs a good representative, a good high school, good middle schools, and good elementary schools. Worrying only about our immediate area of the county isn't going to fix the problem,” she said.

Tucker Parent Council business was conducted at the end of the meeting. Larry Donroe-Wells, TPC president, announced that the Tucker High School Robotigers have made it o the robotics world championship. They will be competing in April in Anaheim, California. The Tucker High School swim team showed well at the state championships, coming in 20th overall with several individuals and relays ranked in the top 10. Tucker Middle School came in 3rd in the county in the annual Helen Ruffin Reading Bowl.

Next month’s TPC meeting will be held March 19 at Smokerise Elementary and will focus on volunteerism in the schools. Elections for next year’s TPC officers will also be held, and those who are interested in serving as President, Vice President, or Recording Secretary are encouraged to contact Larry Donroe-Wells at TuckerParentCouncil@gmail.com.

Looking ahead, the April TPC meeting will be held on the 23rd at Livsey Elementary. Dr. Cheryl Atkinson, Superintendent of DeKalb County Schools, will be giving a talk on the “state of the system.”

 

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