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County school officials clarify changes
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| By: Melissa Turner, News Editor |
July 28, 2010 |
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Things are changing rapidly in the Tate County School District. Fortunately, at least one group of parents is continuing to stay in contact with district leaders in an effort to keep up.
Tate County Parents United for Action was on the agenda again for the board's July 20 meeting, along with others from the community, to find out about changes to several aspects of student life.
Priscilla Turner, spokesperson for her group, asked a series of questions about changes coming to East Tate and Independence for the new school year. Most of them were answered by state-appointed conservator James Malone.
Turner asked about uniform colors for East Tate, saying that her group would like for the school to retain it's separate identity from the rest of the Independence schools. Malone said that parents would have the option of whether to use the East Tate colors of maroon and gold, or go with the Independence colors of red and black.
Eventually, he said, all the schools in Independence would have the same colors.
Turner then asked about why the second graders at East Tate would be up "on the hill" with grades 5-7, citing concerns for the safety of the smaller children.
Malone said that only second graders would be in that building, and that there would be an assistant principal and possibly an attendance officer housed in the facility as well.
She wanted to know if problems with the well at Independence High School had been fixed, and Superintendent Gary Walker said that the well issues had been cleared up in the spring, and after an additional drilling, the water samples were clear of contaminants.
Referencing rumors that the school day would be extended, Turner and others were told by Malone that the state was requiring all "recovery districts," those which were under state conservatorship of any kind, to add an hour of instructional time each day. Exact times were still being ironed out, he added, saying that they did know that bus riders would be dismissed first before car riders.
Turner asked how many days students were required to attend class, and Malone said that hadn't changed - school is in session 180 days, with teachers generally working 187. However, he said the district had built in three furlough days for the end of the year, in case they were needed due to budget cuts.
After Malinda White had formerly been named principal at East Tate, Malone said that former Coldwater Elementary principal Tomeka Pugh would now head the school. Additionally, Coldwater would be split into a K-5 campus and a 6-12, with Willie Brandon as the overall principal and Gary Walker serving as "acting principal" at the elementary campus.
Parents were told that there would be teacher assistants in all kindergarten classrooms, and that first grade classes would have an assistant to share between them. Additionally, Americorps volunteers would be assisting with reading skills in K-2 grades.
However, none of the elementary schools will have PE teachers this year, and neither Coldwater nor Strayhorn high schools will have band programs.
In total, parents were able to interact with district officials for nearly 45 minutes.
Eddie Pitts and Richard Todd were absent from the meeting.
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©The Democrat 2010
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Lashondra Smith |
Jul, 28 2010 |
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2 years ago there was supposed to be an audit of the Tate county School Dist. by the state before the conservator took over. Why has the results of this audit never been released?
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