the gscs COMMUNCATOR

Week of October 10 - 21, 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

In This Issue

GSCS asks public for preference

BOARD BRIEFS

Volunteer Recognition Program

Employee of the Month

Elementary Schools

Anne Street

Bruce Ballard
Director of Facilities
Mr. Ballard has put in many extra hours during and after the fire that destroyed our school kitchen. He made sure that our building was taken care of and that we were ready to open and receive students on the Monday morning following the fire. I know much of what he did was his job, however, how he did his job showed us that he has as much caring and passion about our school as the employees who grace this building everyday. The faculty and staff of Anne Street would like to send a big shout out and thank you to Bruce Ballard for going above and beyond the call of duty. -Evelyn Jones

Atkinson

All paraprofessionals
They were responsible for the decorations at the fall dance, organizing the fall festival activities while continuing to assist their teachers in the classroom.

Beaverbrook

Kathy Johnston
Her work at building our RTI Framework is outstanding.

Cowan Road

Hannah McNeal
For working hard as a first year PreK teacher and taking on the role as our Parent Involvement Coordinator. She has diligently helped our school make connections with parents and the community. Hannah is certainly a valued addition to the Cowan Family!

Crescent

Ellen Crawford, Fran Stikes and Aleshia McCray
For a successful redelivery of Thinking Maps training. Our teacher are currently rolling it out to our students with much success. Thank you for doing a great job!

Futral

Cindy Polizzi
Media parapro
She has stepped up and taken charge in the media center during the absence of our media specialist. She has done a terrific job running the media center and ensured the students and teachers have not missed out on any media services and done so with a positive can do attitude.

Jackson Road

Julie Riggs

1st grade teacher
It is a joy to talk to Mrs. Riggs as she always is positive with a smile on her face. Recently, she did a fantastic job of helping to organize our Fall Festival that was an overwhelming success. A big thank you to Mrs. Riggs!

We appreciate you!

Jordan Hill

David Brewer
Physical Education
Coach Brewer is always willing to help out whenever and wherever needed, with enthusiasm and a commitment to student achievement; he is a great example of the true spirit of the Jordan Hill COL DR award

Moore

Deidre Leaks
Excellent character, excellent spirit of cooperation, effective teacher and exciting tech lab assistant are all descriptors of her contributions to our staff. Her knowledge of technology, teaching of reading and math are great assets to our academic program K-5. She is very humble and consistently caught doing the right thing!! Thanks Deidre, for the great example to us all (students, parents and staff) of a virtuous woman.

Moreland Road

Tracy King, Nicki Gore, and Tabitha Lawrence

for Thinking Maps redelivery and Jody Singletary for our Writing Focus training. These employees consistently go above and beyond "daring to do better" for all of our staff and children here at Moreland Road.

Orrs

Cathy McClure
Cathy drives bus 00-54. She has been instrumental in supporting our total school program. She raised funds for our 5-K run and helped to secure items for our character store. Not only that, she is a responsible driver and her students respect and mind her each day. Cathy is a team player, and we are thrilled to have her as a part of the Orrs team!!

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A message from Superindent Dr. Curtis Jones

The first quarter

For a school system, the first quarter of a school year includes the months of July, August, and September. So, we just completed the first quarter of this school year and it was pretty good.

We've also had some challenges which you responded to in an outstanding way. In addition, in the next few weeks we hope to officially hear about AYP for all of our schools. We believe that 2010-11 will have been the best year for AYP in the history of our school system. Our students and teachers are demonstrating once again what an outstanding school system we truly have.

As we complete this first quarter, we're also planning for next school year.
During the most recent board meeting, the board of education approved the concept of a 170-day school year calendar for 2012-2013. Along with other stakeholders, you will have the opportunity to help us decide the best version of the 170 day school year calendar. You'll see that information below.

During October we will communicate with stakeholders, receive input, and then make a recommendation to the board of education so we can enter November knowing what our calendar is for next year.

170
It's important to note that the calendars that you will consider are 170 days. In many ways, this is a budget decision. As we come to terms with our financial situation for next year, we're looking for more than $6 million to balance our budget.

The 170 day calendar extends the school day by adding minutes each day to get the equivalent of 180 days for students. It also includes the 10 professional learning days that we haven't been able to fully utilize over the last few years. But this is not an ideal situation primarily because it increases the number of work schedule adjustment days from 6 days to 10. And that hurts all of us. Four of our five board members spoke to this during the last board meeting. It's a tough decision, but it's one they recognized had to be made. No one is happy about it.

Priorities
We continue to recognize that education is underfunded from the state level. All of the federal dollars that we received as part of the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act and Jobs bill will be gone for the next school year.

We're on our own except for local tax dollars and state tax dollars. Something has to happen, and it's incumbent upon all of us to let our legislators know our priorities. They have a tough job - they have to balance the state budget, but I believe public education is a top priority for the state, and we should not shortchange our future.

We're making tough decisions now about next year, and the tough decisions are not over - more are to come.

Curtis

GSCS asks public for preference of breaks on 170 day school calendar for 2012-2013 tentatively adopted by board of education

Facing a budget shortfall of $6 million for the 2012-13 school year, the board of education took the first step toward meeting the deficit when it tentatively adopted a 170 day school calendar for 2012-2013, projected to lessen the shortfall by $3.1 million.

Two draft versions of the calendar were approved by the board, who now asks the public to weigh in on the choice of days school is in session. The board of education will approve a final version at its board meeting Tuesday, October 25.

In version 1, school begins on August 27 and concludes on May 24. The breaks for both students and staff are a week at Thanksgiving, two weeks at Christmas, and spring break in April. Students and some support staff would be off Columbus Day in October and Presidents' Day in February, which are professional learning days for teachers.

In version 2, school begins on August 13 and ends May 24. Breaks for students and staff include a week-long fall break in October, Thanksgiving week, two weeks at Christmas, a week-long winter break in February and spring break in April.

Denise Burrell, Deputy Superintendent, said, "No instructional time would technically be lost with a 170 day calendar because each school day would be extended by 20 minutes in the afternoon. All employees will have ten work adjustment days, four more than most employees had this year."

Principals were asked initially to indicate their preference of budget-friendly shortened school year calendars and were in favor of a 170 day school year because that calendar saved the system around $3.1 million in salaries and operation.

BOARD BRIEFS

At its regular meeting on September 27, and October 4, the board of education. . . .

~ Recognized the 2011-2012 Teacher of the Year Finalists.

Johanna Johnson - Jordan Hill Elementary
Robyn Davis - Kennedy Road Middle
Dana Jett - Orrs Elementary

GSCS TOTY finalists from left to right:
Joanna Johnson, Robyn Davis, and Dana Jett.

~ Recognized Kiah Whitfield of Kennedy Road Middle School for receiving the Georgia Power New Teacher Assistance Grant.

Kiah Whitfield (KRMS) is congratulated
by board member Michael Kendall.

~ Tentatively approved a millage rollback rate of 19.06 mills for 2011 property tax bills and to begin the required advertisement process leading to its final adoption.

~ Approved the concept of a 170 school-day calendar for 2012-2013 with a recommendation for the final calendar to be approved at the November 1, board meeting. Click here to voice your preference on the 2012-2013 calendar.

~ Adopted the board of education training plan to submit to the Georgia Department of Education. (memo)

~ Approved the required documentation for the Board of Distinction designation, which will be submitted to the Georgia School Boards Association.

~ Approved the nomination of Thomas Hoefer of the Griffin Daily News for the GSBA Beacon Award (memo).

~ Approved on second reading Policy JQKA - Foreign Students. (memo).

~ Placed on first reading Policy FDC - Naming Facilities. (memo) Click here to give feedback.

~ Approved the School Improvement Grant (SIG) purchase from Sweetwater Sound Inc., in the amount of $123,093.00 to support the Fine Arts Academy at Griffin High School.

Heard reports or presentations on:

~ Griffin High School's collaboration with International Center for Leadership Education for the School Improvement grant.

~ The July and August Finance Reports.

Received points of information on:

~ Representative John Yates's visit to Cowan Road Elementary Pre-Kindergarten arranged by Voices for Georgia's Children & Department of Early Care and Learning.

~ The merger of Griffin-Spalding Partners in Education and the Griffin-Spalding Education Foundation.

~ The Most Valuable Parents volunteer recognition program.

~ The school-system's SWOT analysis.

~ The monthly Construction and Renovation report.

~ The monthly Facilities and Maintenance report.

~ The Workers Compensation Medical Panel.

~ Custodial reorganization.

~ District calendars for October and November 2011.

~ The work of the Griffin Area Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Dr. Cynthia Anderson shared information on programs and activities that support student achievement initiatives of the school system including: Delta Academy-a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) program for middle school females; GEMS-a mentoring program for high school females, and EMBODI-a mentoring program for middle and high school males.

Representative John Yates visits PreK at Cowan Road Elementary School
Rep. John Yates reads to the Prekindergarten students. Rep. Yates was popular with the students. Pictured students are: Payton Henson, James Glass, and Eugene Zonou. Cowan Road Elementary student Isaiah Brock presented a thinking map to Rep. Yates.