Gwinnett County’s newest school board member criticized the agenda at a recent meeting because of what she considered a glaring omission — student achievement.
Adrienne Simmons, elected last year, raised the issue after the board listened to a presentation Thursday about transportation logistics. She said that time could’ve been better spent.
“We could get this information a number of ways, via email or whatever the case. It doesn’t mean we have to spend an hour of our working session time talking about transportation when we have students that don’t know how to read,” Simmons said.
The board has consistently mentioned accountability since a split vote in March to renew Superintendent Calvin Watts’ contract for another two years. Members have asked staff to be more responsive to their questions and information requests and present more thorough data that shows progress over recent years.
Watts and his staff haven’t said much about the board’s recent statements but have seemingly made some changes in response. Board members commended human resources staff Thursday for including more recruitment and retention data and connecting their efforts to the district’s overarching strategic plan. Calendar proposals for upcoming school years also include more religious and cultural holidays, an adjustment that Board Chair Tarece Johnson-Morgan has strongly supported to be more inclusive of Gwinnett’s highly diverse population.
Simmons said time at meetings should be spent on the most immediate and pressing issues since the board has limited opportunity for discussion. Student achievement, she said, should be part of every meeting.
“I want to do the work I was elected to do, and I don’t feel I’m given that opportunity the way some of these meetings are constructed,” she said.
About 45% of Gwinnett third graders were at or above proficiency in English on the latest Georgia Milestones assessment, a slight increase from the previous year but about 5 percentage points less than in 2019, the last cohort of students assessed before the pandemic.
Johnson-Morgan noted that the Milestones results were released about three weeks ago and weren’t on their agenda. District staff plans to discuss Milestones in September, but Johnson-Morgan said it would have been more timely to discuss the scores and plans for improvement in August.
She also highlighted areas where Black, Latino and multilingual students were achieving less than their peers — an issue that she said has persisted for years.
Vice Chair Steve Knudsen said the Milestones breakdown they received from the district highlighted areas Gwinnett outpaced the state without digging into areas of regression or stunted progress. “I would love a little more transparency in where are we doing great and where do we need some help,” Knudsen said.
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