the gscs COMMUNICATOR

Week of August 8-12, 2011

the Griffin-Spalding County School System's employee e-newsletter

published by the school & community services department

the gscs

COMMUNICATOR

system-wide straight talk

It has been a great week!

a message from Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones

Seeing all of you together at the Education Celebration in the Griffin Auditorium was fantastic!

Deputy Superintendent Denise Burrell did a great job presenting the state of the system. She explained where we've been, where we are, and where we're going.
Mr. Dan Cathy did an excellent job of sharing what Chick-Fil-A is about and what it stands for, along with how his personal values drive what he does. He pointed out how organizational values are important

Dan Cathy

State School Superintendent John Barge was outstanding in sharing his personal story about why he supports public education and why he's moving the state in the direction of career pathways.

Griffin-based Partner in Education Norcom, Inc. arranged for the Education Celebration's guest speakers, including State School Superintendent John Barge.

The entire effort by Norcom, Inc. to put together the Education Celebration and the Kids in Need Free Store for Teachers at SHS was incredible. The school supplies and the great volunteer support put into place at Spalding High School were amazing. Thank you, Norcom!

Superintendent Dr. Curtis Jones visits with GHS teacher Cynthia Odom during the Free Store.

The next day we did something totally new! We met with the classified staff in the Taylor Street Auditorium for a beginning of school year gathering. And they enjoyed it! As Dr. Barge reminded us the day before, all adults in the building make a difference. That afternoon we conducted one of our most successful open houses! We met with many students and parents who were happy to be returning. I made it to many schools, and everywhere I went there were high numbers of visitors.

Moreland Road Elementary teacher Sally Brake gives a new student a goodie bag during open house.

The professionalism and teamwork I witnessed was impressive. Teachers were saying the same thing to parents showing consistency and reliability - thus starting the school year right. It's just been a great week!

Now, there are always some challenges. We did meet with some parents whose transfer requests were not approved. Many of them believe some schools are better than others. That's just an opportunity for us to continue to close achievement gaps so we can continue to say every GSCS school is excellent. I personally believe they are. You do a great job, and the results speak for themselves.

So, we still have some challenges ahead, and that is what this year is about. It's an opportunity for all to dare to do better and I am excited for the opportunity!

Enjoy your weekend. Monday is opening day!

Curtis

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How important is Infinite Campus Data?

a message from Josh Griffis, Director of Administrative Technology

During the school year, schools receive weekly Infinite Campus data error reports. Errors consist of missing or invalid demographic information and problems with attendance, discipline, or special education data among other areas. Keeping Infinite Campus data clean is important because errors cause a variety of issues:

Some errors impact FTE and can result in reduced state or federal funding.
Some errors can negatively impact school AYP determinations.
Mailing address errors in Infinite Campus might prevent a parent from receiving a report card or attendance letter.
A teacher missing an email address in Infinite Campus can't login to iSTEEP.
A student-parent relationship error may prevent parents from seeing their child in the Infinite Campus Parent Portal.

These are but a few examples of the more than 150 errors that may be found on the weekly report. Many of the errors can be corrected by a secretary or clerk while other errors must be corrected by special education staff member or an administrator.

I keep track of how many errors each school has each week to:

Identify content areas needing additional training,
Schools needing additional assistance, and
to measure our progress toward being a more reliable organization.

More than a dozen additional training sessions will be offered during the 2011-12 school year based on the areas that have the most errors. Staff may register for those training sessions on PDExpress.

The first error report of the 2010-11 school year was sent in mid-October and we had an average of 25% of students with errors. The last error report was sent in mid-May and we had an average of 4.5% of students with errors - thanks to the cleanup efforts of our school-level office staff.

I would like to recognize the elementary, middle, and high schools with the fewest errors during the 2010-11 school year.

Staff members at these schools have done a great job keeping their data clean and we appreciate their outstanding efforts!

Elementary Schools (average - 2.84%):