Get Schooled

By jim d

June 12, 2006 01:44 PM | Link to this

Well Patti,

I think my position on this has been quite clear.

Gwinnett needs to continue building schools at break neck speed, I’d consider voting for the next SPLOST provided they were to quit buying land behind closed doors and provided they build schools and not buy out their plan on the new offices.

Unfortunately I fear there are many taxpayers in Gwinnett that feel as I do on this issue. Our BOE’s reluctance to come clean over the land purchases may well spell the defeat of this round of SLPOST, bringing badly needed construction to a screaching halt.

By Ernest

June 12, 2006 01:50 PM | Link to this

I also support SPLOST for ‘infrastructure’ imporovements. Infrastructure could include renovations and/or improvements, new construction, and technology upgrades/improvements. I understand the Cobb County court decision however would encourage the various BoEs to be as transparent as possible with how the people’s money is being spent. One recommendation from the DeKalb audit was the more information, such as priorities and project statuses be placed on the website, so that stakeholders can see for themselves.

By SET

June 12, 2006 02:24 PM | Link to this

Would it be too cruel to say that the families involved are required to provision their students - and if they don’t have the money the student goes without, and can’t participate in certain classes?

As long as we’ve had schools there have been lab fees and supplies. School is not “free”. Parents have to clothe their kids and my public school district did not own a single bus. You could walk. Or take a city bus. I did both on occasion.

It’s nice if things are provided for free, but not required. My hat goes out to our local PTAs, school foundations, business and charities that work with the teacher’s unions to provide materials to schools on a charitable basis. But it’s optional.

And grants often have strings and audits attached.

By holdingAJC"accountable"

June 12, 2006 02:48 PM | Link to this

I would be in favor of giving a school system “flexibility” to the extent they have earned the public trust.

With that in mind, if it were my choice, I wouldn’t authorize most school systems in Georgia to purchase a ball point pen unless they specified Bic or PaperMate.

Left to their own devices, many school boards would take the money and attend a symposium on ball point pens…in Hawaii. Of course they would say they went there “for the children”.

By PainfulTruth

June 12, 2006 03:10 PM | Link to this

It’s about time someone held Cobb County responsible. I only hope the GA Supreme Court goes further and checks the history of SPLOST allocations to discover the other abuses that have occurred. There is not enough accountability for the SPLOST expenditures. The money is spent more on political agendas rather than for the benefit of the local community …. btw, SPLOST is a Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax; it can be used for more than just education!

By Liberty'sSon

June 12, 2006 03:13 PM | Link to this

SPLOST is just another bureaucratic manipulation of the feeble minded, which is an apt description of anyone who votes for any of these proposals. The object is always the same, take more money from the people and put it in the hands of the bureaucrats. One of the major selling points of any sales tax proposal is that people outside of the county will pay some of the tax. So every time I buy gas or food or anything else in Cobb I’m supporting their schools. How un-American can you get?

By Liberty'sSon

June 12, 2006 03:16 PM | Link to this

What a ripoff. I have a new acronym, they should rename it THEFT (Taking Hard Earned Funds To (fill in the blank)).

By David Chastain

June 12, 2006 03:19 PM | Link to this

Maybe “bait and switch” sounds harsh, but that is what happened in Cobb over the laptop program.

A SPLOST (special purpose local option sales tax) is a form of financing capital improvements. SPLOST IS NOT the projects themselves. The alternative financing plan is a bond issue, which falls under closer scrutinization and oversight under the law and the financial market. research shows that bond financing puts more money directly into projects with less administrative costs.

In the Cobb Laptop Case, voters had approved $76 million in a SPLOST referendum. For the most part, voters, if they even studied the plan, said “Yes. Spend $76 million on technology upgrades.” Leases were never mentioned.

So, had this change gone through, the initiation of the program would have been financed by SPLOST. However, future commitments would have to be guaranteed with money from the Cobb School District General Fund. The voters had not agreed to this.

It is one thing to build a new building and acknowledge annual costs to maintain and provide utilities. It is quite another to tear down that building, whether you need to or not, and build a replacement every five years. With $76 million you can build three or four schools, depending on size.

Should laptop computer leases be considered capital improvements? That’s a question for another day.

Imagine, instead, a county school system announcing a minimum standard notebook computer that would be requested of all high school students. Further, these standards would be published to every computer store and big-box retailer in metro Atlanta. The price competition would make private ownership affordable to the majority of the families supporting that student population. Insurance could be part of the price. For most, homeowners insurance could be scheduled. On top of that, these could be being used as loss leaders on those sales tax holiddays right before school begins.

Except for those in financial need, the local community would not be obligated to pay for portable technology. Rather, more funds could be invested in wireless technology, like wi-fi wi-max, or broadband. Those needing financial assistance could seek grants or no-interest loans from appropriate sources.

The issue was never about technology. The issue was about honest government, honest representation, and public trust.

By atltoday

June 12, 2006 03:46 PM | Link to this

I’m a Cobb voter and personally there is always overspending or abuse of money. At least if they are abusing the money, it was going to directly benefit middle and high school student in the district regardless of their school. I felt like it was leveling out the playing field.

By Dana

June 12, 2006 04:21 PM | Link to this

It is about Time! Here we are with three failing high schools and spending money on laptops and stickers for textbooks and the lawsuits that come with each

Now can we educate our students?????

By lynn d

June 12, 2006 04:40 PM | Link to this

From a broader perspective, I think that committing SPLOST funds 5 years out can be very difficult for urban systems that are not rapidly growing. Today’s fast growing cluster, could easily find growth slowing in 3 to 5 years. (Keeping in mind that the plans are made a year to two years before a SPLOST vote.)

On DeKalb’s original SPLOST list, for the first SPLOST, was an addition to an elementary school that was losing students by the end of the first SPLOST. Fortunately, the addition never happened.

Also, I think the requirement for honestly has to extend to expectations of funds raised. DeKalb has consistently over estimated how much $ would be raised plus apparently, based on the audit, underestimated the actual costs of projects.

By MMM

June 12, 2006 05:14 PM | Link to this

I wish there were some way of getting a public school building for my kid’s public charter school on the next SPLOST list. It would be perfectly legal if the district continued to own the building, but I’m not going to hold my breath expecting it.

By SNY

June 13, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this

SET,

I didn’t pay for lab costs or anything like that until senior year. I don’t know where you went to school but school was free for me, except for lunch. Lunch was full price because my parents were okay money wise. There are other problems in schools that need to be taken care of NOW. We are wasting time and money over ideas that were stupid from conception. It is time to move on.

By greg pepitone

June 13, 2006 09:22 AM | Link to this

Glad to see the great computer give away program NIXED, we already buy lunch….. what next cell phones for the little teachers and kids. Who said there was no such thing as a free lunch. Stupid people in charge and funding stupid people. What a plan for desaster.

By KPS

June 13, 2006 09:48 AM | Link to this

As someone with more than an intimate knowledge of the Power to Learn case and both Cobb SPLOSTS programs, the Georgia Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday IS an excellent bellweather for other school systems who want to put another SPLOST before their voters. Why? Because the court has affirmed that elected public officials must do what we teach our kids from the time they are little: honesty, integrity, keep your word….. The real issues in the Cobb PTL case were TRULY not about flexibility in determining what technology was best for students- that was a red herring used by Kathie Johnstone, Don Beers, etc. when their first line of defense did not work. SPLOST II was designed to provide technology upgrades to students K-12- the Power to Learn initiative virtually “left behind” K-5 students and worst of all, was planned behind the scenes months before formal plans for SPLOST II were advocated to the public or planned by committees working with the BOE. The Special Grand Jury meeting in Cobb County will hopefully help to sort out the truth where all of this is concerned and the public can see how our system works. In the meantime, the Supreme Court of Georgia has provided all Georgia BOE’s the opportunity to work with the Citizen’s Advisory Panels, local community leaders, PTSA’s, civic and community planners and their own leadership in developing the best and most accurate representation of their own school system’s needs and place THAT agenda and it’s associated costs and documentation ( with timeline) before the voters for their hopeful approval. Solid and prepared BOE’s operating in full transparency will have nothing to fear and will enjoy the fruits of their labors with broadspread community support and votes.

By SET

June 13, 2006 10:29 AM | Link to this

My public High School had no cafeteria - all the students were expected to bring a packed lunch from home. There were no restaurants or fast food places around the school either.

None of the elementry schools in the district had any food service whatsoever. Same policy - bring lunch with you.

We all managed to survive and for the most part graduate and go on to college.

Of course this was in 1970 when the government had not yet arranged for all mothers to have to work. The vast majority of my classmates (and myself) had mothers who were housewives, with no full time jobs - but most had 4 year degrees.

My mother like most had worked but stopped working after the 2nd if not the first child. Mom was a social worker in the early 1950s.

The current thinking now I suppose is that the taxpayers are required to transport and feed the children - perhaps to make it easier for people to have them without concern for having to provide. The same line of thinking holds that the taxpayers are required to provide free labor and delivery hospital services for destitute people who have children - so that the parents don’t have to plan for that either as they have children casually without planning to take care of them.

The alternative would be too cruel to contemplate - having the government butt out of people’s lives and let destitutes have their children at home with perhaps a midwife they could afford - and let the chips fall where they may. And let the parents feed their own children as best they can and transport them to school in whatever fashion they could.

Maybe it’s a matter of whose children (and whose responsibility) they are - the parents’ or the government’s children?

And it’s not that I have a problem with children. It’s just that the more you relieve people of responsibilities, the more they slack off completely in taking care of that responsibility.

Such policies would also quickly disabuse people of the silly notion that we are all equal (emotionally, IQ, etc.) As some kids would clearly be better cared for than others and people could (better) see the benefit of working hard vs working not (as opposed to working the system).

And I’m not worried about kids being given “free” government laptops either. We have gone too far already. Nobody values or takes care of what they get for “free”.

By SFR

June 13, 2006 11:44 AM | Link to this

The SPLOST vote was for upgrading technology for all Cobb students, not a select group, and the school board has spent countless taxpayer dollars trying to get someone to say they were justified in circumventing its intent. If they were, it would have happened by now. Meanwhile, between that and the sticker debacle, which is of the same useless ilk, our students have been denied educational benefits and teachers have been cut from our schools for lack of money. Hmm … wonder if that would have happened if the school board wasn’t so stupid and bull-headed? In November, any person who voted for either debacle will not get my vote if they are on my ballot.

By teachertoo

June 14, 2006 09:10 AM | Link to this

SFR hit the nail on the head. The arrogance of the Cobb County school board has come at the expense of our students. While the school board has spent countless amounts of money appealing lawsuits, our district sits on the list of school systems not making Adequate Yearly Progress. Further, a number of schools continue on the needs improvement list, and the sanctions increase. This school board has not been a trustworthy steward of our tax dollars. Not only are they spending foolishly, but while these schools sit on the needs improvement list, we sit by and watch our home values lag. The primaries are right around the corner…hopefully the first step toward a clean sweep of this board.

By sick of crooks at the Cobb Board of Ed

June 14, 2006 02:01 PM | Link to this

Once again the BOE in Cobb has shown their hind sides. How much time/energy/tax dollars have been wasted. Kathie Johnstone is the most idiotic of all. She’s a wanna be in Cobb Politics. All the people in Cobb that know her think she’s a joke. Let’s buy science books for 8th graders maybe next year since they spent that money instead on fighting the courts in a winless battle. Then they wonder why science scores are down!! And they have the gall to say they care about the kids. Poppycock! They care about themselves and their own agenda only. Oh, yes and the money that crosses their palms in their behind the doors closed sessions.

By jim d

June 15, 2006 09:19 AM | Link to this

Teachertoo,

Cobb doesn’t have anything on Gwinnett when it comes to wasting tax dollars in court.

Gwinnett usually settles and with a non disclosure clause that keeps both sides from disclosing the settlement amount. How sweet that tax payers are kept in the dark about the wasteful spending of millions of tax dollars.

By Lee

June 16, 2006 08:31 AM | Link to this

Speaking of wasteful spending….

My local school system built a new high school a few years back. The original selling point was that upon completion, they would renovate the old high school and move the middle school into it and then use the old middle school for a Pre-k or K.

Good plan. One problem. They spent so much money on a new football stadium that they had to delay renovation. It also seems that our highly paid central office staff didn’t realize that if you vacate a school building for more than 12 months, in order to reoccupy it, you must bring it up to current DOE standards. All the king’s consultants agreed that it wasn’t economically feasible and they wound up selling the old school for a fraction of it’s real worth.

Now they are about to start construction of a new middle school and the plans are to shut down the old one. The superintendent was quoted as saying we are entering an era of having to keep building schools. Well duh. If you build a new school with 50 classrooms and you shut down one with 35 classrooms, you don’t have to be a genious to figure that math problem out….

My home is 100 years old. Still in great shape. My daughters private school has buildings that are over 75 years old. Great architecture. But let a school building get about 25 years of age on it and they want to tear it down.

Maybe if they spent some of that tax money on maintenance instead of building ball fields they could keep the infrastructure in good shape.

::Sigh::

BOHICA - Bend Over, Here It Comes Again….

By Lee

June 16, 2006 09:48 AM | Link to this

BTW, before you bloggers with no life jump on me, I realize I misspelled genius….