The list below all seem to have voiced concern,

Shelby Barker, luckydog, ptctaxpayer, kjam, poipendicular, Fyt35, muddle, Hey, sniffles5, yardman5508, doglover, veni_vedi_vici_, boxwing, skyspy, sweetpolly, balloonguy, wheeljc, Tug13, Y oh Y, DJS, dwsscs, Buckwheat Rules, PTC_New_Native, Goukalake, ptcgv, Cyclist, ptcmom678, Spyglass, PTC Dawg, Lakey, ynot, CitizenBlogger, poipendicular, swmbo, Hey, hutch866, boxwing, huey_ip, MajorMike, V_O_X, oldbeachbear, Robert W. Morgan, Lakey

While it's good that SB 458 has been amended to say that schools "may" accept students from systems that lose their accreditation as opposed to "shall", the FCBOE needs to pass a resolution at its next meeting saying the following:

"Fayette County schools are paid for by a combination of state funds and the property taxes of Fayette County residents."

"Access to Fayette County schools is a local issue and Fayette County will not be forced by outside agencies to take any action that does not protect both the quality of its schools or cause additional cost to its taxpayers."

"It is our intent to restrict access to our schools to residents of Fayette County."

"If space is available in our schools, the FCBOE may consider limited transfer of students providing it is allowed to screen with its own guidelines who it accepts, and Fayette County is reimbursed 100% of the actual cost of the education provided."

The FCBOE has to be clear that while we sympathize with the STUDENTS of Clayton County, the accreditation problems in Clayton are the result of the actions of the Clayton County BOE. Clayton County needs to solve its own problems and SB 458 fails to address that need, and actually ENABLES the CCBOE to continue to act in a manner that has caused its accreditation problems.

Thanks Matt, once again you came to the rescue. Way to listen to the public!!!

VOTE CONSERVATIVE

Following is a copy of the article printed in Clayton Daily Newspaper this morning:

ATLANTA - Legislation offering state-funded vouchers to students in schools or school systems that lose their accreditation easily passed a House committee on Wednesday.

The bill, sparked by the recent threat to the accreditation of Clayton County Public Schools, already has passed the Senate and could reach the House floor as early as Friday.

The measure passed the Science and Technology Committee 6-2, along party lines, with Republicans supporting it and Democrats voting against it.

The bill would allow students in schools that lose their accreditation or in schools designated "needs improvement" under the federal No Child Left Behind law for seven straight years to transfer, either to another public school, or to a private school.

Legislative Democrats and organizations representing teachers and school administrators have criticized it as another bid by Republicans to promote spending public money on private-school vouchers.

But Senate President Pro Tempore Eric Johnson, the bill's sponsor, said the track record of voucher programs shows that not enough students would take advantage of the transfer offer to affect the public schools they leave behind.

Johnson (R-Savannah) said no more than 5 percent of students typically take part in a voucher program. For one thing, parents are responsible for transportation when a student transfers.

"The purpose of this is not to send a bunch of kids to private schools," Johnson said.

With Johnson's support, the committee amended the bill to remove an amendment the Senate had added that would have required public school districts to accept transferring students.

Sen. John Douglas (R-Covington), whose district includes part of Henry County, said residents there were worried that students transferring in from the Clayton County system would deluge the Henry schools.

"We're facing in Henry County a perception that the dam is getting ready to break and a flood of thousands of students is about to come out of Clayton County," Douglas said.

But Johnson said the amendment approved by the committee would ensure that overcrowded school districts aren't forced to accept additional students they can't handle.

"It is subject to the receiving school, whether they accept any child for any reason," he said.

Johnson introduced the bill last month after the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools put the Clayton County system on notice that the district would lose its accreditation after Sept. 1, unless it fixes nine failures outlined in a report released by the organization.

That recommendation was ratified less than two weeks ago by SACS' national organization.

Good job Matt Ramsey! I was glad to take part and send my e-mail to you and many others; you were the only one who took the time to reply!

Education aside, a second front has come up and I knew this would happen. High school coaches across the county, especially in football are salivating at the prospect of bringing recruits into the local athletic programs to shore up their teams. I have heard from several folks already of kids at Lovejoy, Jonesboro and Riverdale being approached, not necessarily by coaches but by “second or third party” individuals.
How sad if this were to happen!

Don't be fooled. The bill now greased for full House approval STILL INCLUDES a provision that could result in a lot of pressure on Fayette to accept potentially large numbers of students from Clayton, to be educated partly at Fayette taxpayer expense.

And contrary to Rep. Ramsey's claim, this provision was ALWAYS part of the bill that originated in the senate, sponsored by 6 Republicans who saw a chance to score some points for the GOP's school voucher crusade and were willing to sell out Fayette in the process.

Citizens of Fayette County - find our who your legislators are and remember this when election time rolls around. Two of our legislators, Ronnie Chance and Mitch Seabaugh voted FOR this bill. I don't know who will be running against those two when election time rolls around, but I already know I will be voting for whoever opposes Seabaugh and Chance. They both need to go. Valencia Seay who lives in Clayton County voted NO. Maybe it is because Seay knows the schools in Clayton County are not the problem - the problem is with the Board of Education that was elected by the voters of Clayton County. Clayton County students would rather stay in their own schools and the students are begging the incompetent Board members to resign. There should be some kind of law that would allow the voters to hold a special election to throw the incompetent Board members out and replace them with qualified people. If the President of the United States can be impeached, then the Clayton County Board of Education should be impeached and a law needs to be enacted to do this.

Good job Ramsey, but the fight is not over. This bill needs to be defeated totally. Everyone needs to email, call and write to all the reps in the house to back up our Matt Ramsey. Boo hiss to Ronnie Chance. What were you doing when this was voted on? How could you vote yes to the SHALL version? Better pay closer attention to your voting, buddy. We did not send you there to mess up. Does straddling the fence get old?

The true impact of this bill will be that school systems that border a county system that fails to maintain accreditation will see a tidal wave of new students without the accompanying full funding. This will increase teach-student ratios, increase over-crowding and lower student performance in the receiving school systems. The result will be a “domino effect” where a localized educational melt-down will now become a regional educational failure. This is not a logical solution to the problem.

Rather than simply spread the problem over a larger area to hide its true effects, this bill should promote clear steps to contain and solve the problem at the local county level. The main steps to this would be as follows:

- State takeover of any school system that fails to maintain accreditation.

- Institution of a School Oversight Board by the Governor for a period of three years which will take over the functions of the local School Board. The main goal of this Oversight Board will be to take the hard steps to regain accreditation for the local school system within the three year period. Students retain Hope Scholarship rights while the Oversight Board is in control.

- Once accreditation is regained, an elected local School Board would be reinstituted with limited control. The School Oversight Board would still be in place to supervise the actions of the School Board and have veto power over their actions.

- After a three year probationary period with adequate performance by the local School Board and system, the state School Oversight Board would be disbanded and total control would return to the local School Board.

Such a system would fix the problem, stop its spread to other neighboring systems, and not unduly penalize the students for the failures of the so-called adults who created the problem.

State Sentate and House - Let's solve the problem where it started!

Wow, the people spoke and the politicians actually listened. Is there going to be a blue moon tonight?

Matt could you harold some lessons?

Received the following e-mail from Representative Ramsey's office about ten minutes ago:

I am pleased to report that a House committee has stripped a provision in Senate Bill 458 that would have potentially required school systems to accept students from other school systems that lose accreditation. I spoke in Committee today and thanked the Chairman and author of the bill on behalf of Fayette County for agreeing to amend the Senate version of the legislation to address our concerns. The new version of the provision is now permissive and says that the receiving school system “may” accept such student, leaving it to the sole discretion of the receiving County. I and several colleagues worked diligently over the last several days to convince members of the Committee that this would have serious and detrimental consequences for school systems forced to accept an influx of students from failing school districts. I am thankful that the Committee has agreed and made this critical change to the legislation. I would like to specifically thank all the parents that have contacted me and other members of the General Assembly in opposition to this provision. The outcry of our community made it easy for me to make the case that this was bad public policy. I am so proud to represent a district that cares so deeply about the education of our youth. We now must vigilantly track the progress of this bill to ensure further efforts to amend this legislation are defeated. As a parent of two young children about to start in our local schools, I will always fight to protect the quality of Fayette County’s schools for them and all the children of our community. As a product of Fayette County public schools, I believe it is my charge to work to ensure current and future generations of local school children have the same excellent education I was afforded.

Ok, that's good for now. I suppose that the next issue is going to come about when the FCBoe indicates that our schools are full; is there a pool started yet for when the lawsuits are going to begin!

This legislation doesn't need to be amended - it needs to be quashed. It should have been kept in committee. Interesting that it came about what, five days before the General Assembly is due to complete it's session? I've always told my children that timing in life is everything - this proves that adage, I suppose.

Thanks goes to The Citizen, John Munford and Cal Beverly for expeditiously getting the information out; providing a super platform for discussion/debate and critical/timely phone numbers and Email addresses. Thanks also goes to the community for taking time to ACT!

Think we may have some politicians who may have to answer to actions they took prior to reneging!! Sure is interesting isn't it??????

THANKS AGAIN TO THE CITIZEN!!

Changed back to original language that a school system MAY accept vs. Shall accept.

It's not over yet, keep calling and emailling.

Matt Ramsey was at the committee hearing to speak on Fayette's behalf listened to it on the web.