Some Gwinnett County school board members aren’t thrilled with aspects of a revised plan under discussion at the state Capitol to help underperforming public schools.
The board members criticized aspects of House Bill 338, filed earlier this month, a new effort to give the state greater power to assist chronically-failing schools. Voters refused to amend the state Constitution in November to allow an appointee of the governor to take over those schools.
“There’s nothing that holds parents accountable…and I think that’s a critical component,” board chair Louise Radloff said during a Gwinnett school board meeting last week. “I think there needs to be something in that bill that does that.”
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Board member Dr. Robert McClure raised concerns during the meeting about a provision in the bill that allows the governor to suspend school board members if more than one-half of the schools in their district are rated by the state as unacceptable.
“Logic would say if the state can’t fix it, do we punt it to the federal government and let them fix it,” McClure said. “You keep moving it up the ladder. That’s the whole answer to the problem, you move the representation farther and farther and you take away representation altogether.”
Gwinnett, Georgia’s largest school district, does not have any schools on the state’s chronically-failing schools list.
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