Last night the board voted to shorten the school year by 3 days to 177 instructional days.  Teacher contracts will be based on 185 days. When we originally discussed reducing days it was to give us room to be able to react to lost state revenue.  Unfortunately our local property tax revenue dropped by 5% instead of the 2.5% we projected.  This ate up the three days proposed and left us no ability to adjust to changes from the state in 2011.  Dr Harper’s original proposal was to only shorten the school year by 3 days and re-evaluate where we are in January.  I made the proposal to go ahead and take the 5 days now for the following reasons:

1. This is over and teachers will not have the uncertainty about this issue for the 2010-2011 school year
2. We will take no more days this year…THIS IS IT!
3. Your pay will be STABLE
4. By taking 5 days now we can divide the lost pay by 12 months instead of 6…Lowest monthly impact to teachers
5. Teachers start back on August 4th instead of on July 30th
6. Students come back on August 9th instead of August 4th (full week of instruction)
7. Teachers will only have one post-planning day (May 23rd, 2011)

No one likes to lose any money but by taking this action now we have tried to create a situation where we have the least impact on our staff.  Had we taken only 3 days most of us believed that we would have had to come back and take more days second semester.  We are giving you all of this information now so that you can budget and plan for next year without waiting for some other shoe to drop.  I hope that the extra time at the beginning and end of this years calendar will help ease the blow of the lost salary.  The good news is that this is DONE….You know everything that we know and now you can just focus on your family and teaching your students.

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I was having a running discussion through twitter last week with a friend of mine on the topic of public education. In the course of our conversation we talked quite a bit about what the role of teachers and parents should look like. After a lot of thought I wanted to dive into this a little bit deeper.

There is a misconception in this country from soccer moms to conservative talk show hosts that education in this country is public.  This in many ways is a myth and has done more harm to the process of children learning than any politician or political party. While it is true that the funding for education comes in large part from public sources the responsibility for education is inherently private.  Too many parents have abdicated their responsibility to the institutions of education simply because they have paid their school taxes.

Education public or private is simply a conduit to provide information to students so that they can become more productive citizens in our society.  Parents must ensure regardless of the funding mechanism employed that their children learn and grow as people and students in our schools.

Public education is a myth because it is a private responsibility of parents to be an active participant in the process.  I worry much more about the children with inattentive parents and poor modeling than I do about the occasional bad teacher.  Teachers only have students for a limited time and it is difficult if not impossible to overcome a marginal home environment.

Real improvement in education will come when we see families re-engaged with one another. The government can never replace the God ordained responsibility of parents.  Show me a family filled with love and a nurturing environment and I will show you a student who will learn regardless of the funding source of the educational institution.

Public education is a Myth……Quality education begins and ends privately every morning and evening in homes all over this country.  If we want better schools we all need to work on being and building better parents.

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The Georgia Legislature has been a hot bed for corruption for years with very little reform to truly address any of the systemic problems that have plagued this institution.  Instead of cleaning up there own mess they have opted in concert with Governor Perdue to do the more politically expedient and go after local school boards.

As a result of the loss of accreditation for Clayton County schools the legislature is considering sweeping changes to school board service.   Here are some of the details of SB 84:

SB 84 contains provisions by which local board members can be removed from office for certain ethical or conflict of interest violations or if the system looses accreditation; sets training requirements for board members, and attempts to define the role of board members and superintendents.

As a school board member, I can tell you that all of these things are already in place. When schools systems  fail there is shared responsibility between the central office, the board and the voters. Clayton County was the first to lose its accreditation and there are only a couple at risk this year.  The vast majority of systems perform well and do not need this intervention from the state.

This change is more about politicians wanting to stand up in front of crowds and brag about “change” with no real impact to how the legislators do their job. Every year we are forced to listen to these people bloviate  about that which they really do not understand.

Maybe our legislators should actually try and start representing the people who elected them instead of grandstanding in a quest for more political power.  Local control and smaller government is not always pretty but it is supposed to be what the Republican party stands for.

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A suit was filed in Federal court this week challenging the constitutionality of a new clause that was added to HB 251 in the Georgia Legislature last year.  This clause prohibits people to serve on the school board if they have relatives serving in various capacities within the school system.

Why is the Ga. Legislature inserting itself into local government? They pass ridiculous laws and the local community has to step in to try and fix it.  This is a free speech issue and in my view another example of the boys in Atlanta reaching to far. People should not be prohibited from serving on the school board based on the career choices of their family.

When is the Republican party going to understand that they cannot have it both ways? We either are the party of freedom and local control or we are not.  The board is the elected leadership of the school system. This law impacts the governance of this institution.  Any board public or private would fight to ensure that we (the board) in concert with the voters determine how to lead this community.

I have received some concerns about the fact that this suit is being funded by the Bartow County Board of Education. Concerns over the cost should be addressed to the legislators who use petty arguments in their community to impact an entire state.  They forced this action.

Where does it stop? It you have a son who is a police Lt. should you be ruled unfit to serve on a city council? Everything about this is wrong. My family experience in education and my own service as a teacher have made me a better public servant.  Part of my job in protecting this community and our students is to ensure that good people can serve on this board. This is a worthy fight and an important issue for the future of this school system. That makes this fight financially sound.

Those in favor of this change would argue that the corruption that has been uncovered in a small percentage of school systems warrant this restriction on who can legally serve.  We have a process for dealing with elected officials who under-perform. That process is elections. We cannot replace occasional voter apathy and lack of due diligence with the heavy handedness of government. Why just school boards? Why not county commissions, or city councils? Does inappropriate hiring not occur at all levels of government? Why not amend the constitution so that you can’t be elected federally if you have a spouse in state government?

All of these issues occur in the private sector as well, by the way.

It will never be a perfect system but the voters of OUR community should decide this issue not the Georgia Legislature

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Last night the school board went through our annual process of selecting new board officers. There was no change in leadership and the results are that Lamar Grizzle will remain in the position of Chairman while Roger Maier will continue in the role of Vice-Chairman.  The vote was 4-1 with me casting the lone dissenting vote.  I have had a few people ask me my thoughts of this issue and I thought I would just simply re-state my comment from the paper.

I sought the support of a majority of the board for the position of board chair and could not garner the votes required. I have strong political and philosophical differences with those nominated for board leadership and voted accordingly”

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Tonight the Bartow County Board of Education at the request of Gov. met to determine how we were going to achieve the 3 teacher furlough days. We decided to take one of the days on Sept. 8 and the other two will be Oct. 20th , and 21st. The Sept. 8th date will give an additional day for the Labor Day holiday. The Oct. 20th and 21st date will be added to Oct. 19th which teachers and students had off already to create a more meaningful fall break.

We have added 12 minutes of instructional time from August through December to meet the mandate that no teaching time be lost. No one likes the prospect of losing salary but I hope that this additional time with family will make a difficult situation easier.

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The development of the mission statement has become one of the founding activities from both the secular and religious community. The process has taken on the time honored role of being that sacred of all boxes that must be checked prior to seeking a Small Business Association loan or presenting to a group of church investors. It is the opportunity to in a few words truly explain what the role of the organization will be. The mission statement seeks to both define why the organization exists and explain how it will be successful moving forward. Mission statements have lost much of what they were originally intended to be and now take on almost an after thought role in business or organizational development. This lack of sustainability is due in large part to overly verbose mission statements with little to no creativity. Statements should be shorter and well thought out so that they can convey the feel of the organization but strong enough to inspire and direct to work of the organization.

Social networking is changing the way that we are all interacting with one another. I must admit that I am a Twitter user as are many people across all professions and organizations. The thing I love about Twitter is that you only have 140 characters to say whatever it is that you want to communicate. You really have to refine your message to get it to its most impactful level to fit it into the required length. I really believe that a lot of churches and organizations should see if their mission statement passes the “Twitter Test” on what they are communicating.

Many people miss the opportunity to brand their organizations through the effective crafting of a short, thoughtful, memorable statement about what the organization exists to do. The best mission statements that I have seen are the ones that drive decision making and that are repeated at almost every meeting or gathering of the institution involved. By creating a concise mission statement the end user, patron, or church member remembers organizations empower people to live out those values each time they represent the institution. Mission statements must be a real part of the planning process or they will simply become a perfunctory exercise that is only understood by the leadership and never fully embraced by those doing the work in the trenches day in and day out.

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I have been on vacation the past few days but when my mind quiets I find myself thinking about Lance Cpl. Seth Sharp.  I just can’t seem to get past some striking similarities we share.  At 18, I was young and eager to leave Bartow County and the loving but protective grasp of my parents and secure my own place in this world.  My family was “middle class” only by the skin of our teeth, and I knew that I would need money for college and thought the military was the right way to achieve my education dream.  I left on Father’s Day 1991 to begin my service in the United States Marine Corps and my life would be changed forever.

Reading the story about Seth was like reading  what could have been me 18 years ago now. I was a young radio operator serving as a forward observer for T battery5/10 out of Camp Lejeune N.C. I also spent some time ironically with “E” Co. 2/8 in Korea.  I was just like this amazing kid who we just lost to the horrors of war.  I was fortunate that by the time I got out of boot camp the first Gulf War was essentially over and I never saw any serious fighting.  LCpl. Sharp saw more danger in one day than just about my entire Marine Corps experience.

My experience in the Marine’s has placed in my heart a profound love for this country and the men and women who fight so valiantly for our freedom. I did not know Seth Sharp but I am sure that I sat on the stage with him as he received his diploma as a part of my school board responsibilities.  We. …and I mean this community…all of us have lost a special young man and a family has lost an irreplaceable treasure.  I just needed to tell Seth’s family “Thank You” for his service and for the amazing life led by this courageous young man.

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This week I voted against the 2010 budget and against some additional funding for the New Cass High School. In the case of the budget it was because the Bartow County school system has received more that 3.9 million dollars in stimulus money that I just simply do not agree with. I asked Dr. Harper to separate this money into a different line item so that the budget and these federal funds could be voted on separately. This did not happen so on principle I voted against the entire budget.  The amount of money that has been spent by the Obama administration has leveraged the future of this country and put our financial and military security at risk.  I am one person and cannot do much to stem this tide of Socialism that is permeating our country right now. What I can do is stand up using the power of my office to vote my conscience and say “enough is enough!”

Please see The Daily Tribune article for more on the budget

Please see The Daily Tribune article for more on Cass High School

As far as the New Cass High school is concerned my views on this are well documented.  We handled this property completely differently than any piece of property that we ever looked at for Cass High school.  I believe these sinkhole problems are connected to that ”rush to buy” and the taxpayers continue to foot the bill on the most expensive piece of property that we had to choose from in our search for Cass High’s location.  I lay these problems at the feet of those people who knowingly made a poor decision based on everything other than the facts that we were presented with.  Here are some thoughts I had back in 2007 when this process was ongoing:

 http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/24/monday-mind-dump/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/13/does-this-seem-like-a-good-deal-to-you/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/whats-wrong-with-this-picture/

http://mattshultz.wordpress.com/2007/09/11/cass-parents-students-voters-lose-with-55-million-dollar-splost-mistake/

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