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What’s New in Fulton County Schools for 2004-05

Fulton County’s bright yellow school buses will soon be on the streets, signaling the start of another school year. The opening of five new schools and implementation of new student achievement programs are highlights of the school year, which begins for the majority of Fulton County students on Monday, August 9.Ê Students attending Fulton’s two year-round calendar schools, Parklane Elementary and College Park Elementary, returned to the classroom on July 12.

The Fulton County School System is the fourth largest school district in Georgia with an enrollment expected to surpass 75,000 students by the end of the 2004-05 school year. The school system includes 88 schools. There are 52 elementary schools, 18 middle schools, 14 high schools, and four start-up charter schools.

Project First Day - During August 2-6, a task force of 40 school social workers will activate “Project First Day,” an information campaign to educate students and parents about the importance of attendance on the first day of school.

Project First Day started in 1998 to combat the wait-a-week or wait-until-Labor Day attendance syndrome. Social workers spend the week posting and distributing special Project First Day fliers to apartment complexes, churches and other places of worship, neighborhood businesses and playgrounds, and any other meeting places where parents and school-age children gather. They also call parents of chronically absent students to remind them of the first day of school and to answer any questions they may have about the new school year.

New Teacher Orientation - Approximately 600 new Fulton County teachers gather next week for the school system’s annual New Teacher Orientation. The event is part of the school system’s pre-school year activities to welcome teachers and help them prepare for their new classrooms and teaching assignments.

All new elementary teachers will meet July 28 at Northview High School, 10625 Parsons Road, Duluth, for a system-level orientation.Ê Secondary teachers will have their system orientation on July 29 at Tri-Cities High School, 2575 Harris Street in East Point.Ê On the other days of the week the teachers will be in their assigned schools or cluster meetings.

New school openings, attrition and promotions have led to several changes in principalships.Ê The following schools open the year with a new leader:

South Fulton County

Sandtown MS Sandra McGary-Ervin (formerly elementary principal in Cobb County)

Hapeville Charter MS Gary Martin (formerly at Fulton County Math/Science HS)

Principals have yet to be named for Randolph Elementary, Banneker High, and Westlake High.

New Administrators - New administrators have been welcomed to the school system’s central administration offices. Dr. Vickie Perdue Scott, a former Bibb County School System leader, is Fulton’s new Deputy Superintendent for Academics. She will guide Fulton County in its academic programs and focus on student achievement.

While in Bibb County, Dr. Scott held positions of assistant superintendent, principal, and associate principal.Ê She was on the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools’ Quality Assurance Review Team that evaluated the Fulton County School System and made a recommendation to SACS for districtwide accreditation, which was subsequently approved.

Banneker High School Principal Dewitt Walker and River Trail Middle School Principal Vicki Denmark also join the administrative team as new area superintendents of the Creekside/Westake and Alpharetta/Milton clusters, respectively. Their new responsibilities include day-to-day oversight and management of all schools within their assigned clusters. Before the appointment, Walker was principal at Banneker for five years and Dr. Denmark had been River Trail’s principal since its opening in 2001.

Growth continues in the Fulton County School System, with an additional 2,000 new students expected this year.Ê To accommodate the rising enrollment, the school system this year opens five new schools: two elementary, two middle, and one high school.Ê Two of the schools are funded with proceeds from the 1997 SPLOST referendum, with three being funded through 2002 SPLOST funds.Ê The school district has now opened 31 new schools in the past eight years.

New Charter School - Hapeville Middle School opens as Fulton’s newest start-up charter school. The school aims to increase student achievement by offering a unique curriculum focusing on math, science, and foreign language instruction. As a charter school, Hapeville Middle operates as part of the Fulton County School System but is exempt from some local and state rules due to its charter. Located at 3535 South Fulton Avenue in Hapeville, the school expects to open with 120 sixth graders and will increase enrollment and grade levels as students are promoted to the next grade.

Expanded Foreign Language in Elementary Schools - All Fulton County elementary schools now offer foreign language to fourth and fifth grade students. Students receive 30 minutes of foreign language instruction daily in Spanish, French or Japanese.

Revised High School Language Arts Curriculum - This past year the Board adopted a revised language arts curriculum for grades 9-12 that reflects a balance of reading and responding to literature, media and technology, oral communication, writing, and inquiry and research.Ê Courses for the updated curriculum include 9th and 10th grade literature, composition,Ê reading and writing enhancement; American literature and composition; world literature and composition (including contemporary, English and multicultural literature); journalism; and Advanced Placement language and literature.

Before- and After-School Programs - Fulton County has refined its elementary before- and after-school programs to be more consistent from school-to-school in content and quality. The new programs focus on academic support and homework help, while still providing enrichment, recreation, and nutritional snacks.

No Child Left Behind - Fulton County schools continue to make progress in accordance with the requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB).Ê The primary goal of the law is to have all students achieving at grade level by 2014.Ê In accordance with federal law, Fulton County schools that are in Needs Improvement status (meaning they have not made adequate yearly progress as defined by the state for two or more years in a row) are offering choice options to parents of students.Ê In addition, low-income students in those schools can request extra help such as free tutoring.Ê Once AYP results are received from the state later this summer, the school district will inform parents about options that may be open to them for the coming year.

Unitary Status Implementation Continues - The 2004-05 school year is the system’s second year under unitary status, the result of an agreement reached between the school system and plaintiffs in the long-running Hightower v. West school desegregation case in spring 2003.

With the settlement, the Fulton County School System has been declared to be a unitary school system in which the segregative practices of the former dual system are no longer evident and no longer affect current operations.