Great run Saturday morning. It was a true frostbite run. Look to be about 100 Runners out there but there were at least that many Phantom runners.

An article that caught my interest stated that teachers are absent 1.6 to 2.3 times the average worker. I know when I taught in the 80’s and 90’s that I was sick a lot in my first few years which doctors attributed to my work environment. However later I was rarely sick and missed very few days except for non-sick days. I knew older teachers that took every Friday or Monday off to use accumulated sick days before retirement because they were not compensated for these days at retirement.

I would be interested in any comments from parents of current or past students of EDITED for violation of terms of usage regarding her teaching methods. Please keep them civil and honest, but I would be interested in both positive and negative input about her.

Just wondering if anyone knows why employee morale at Hood Ave is so low?

We will be moving to Peachtree City sometime in the upcoming year. Have already visited the city once and loved it. However, we are trying to decide which school district we should live in since our son will be starting High School in the fall of 2010.

Cheers to the McIntosh Chiefs soccer team for reaching the State finals for a second year and becoming nationally ranked - #1!

I learned something new this morning...

They've removed table salt from FCBOE schools.

You can't find a single salt shaker on a lunchroom table throughout the system.

Minutes
ESPLOST Committee Meeting
March 30,2009

Committee members met at the Fayette County Board of Education's Central Office at 7:00 p.m. Dr. John DeCotis, Superintendent, welcomed the new committee members from the construction committee to the meeting, and

I guess I've been teaching and not paying enough attention to the emails from the superintendent's office. I learned yesterday that teachers in Fayette County will be furloughed for a yet undetermined number of days in the school year so as to save the county more money. I understand the furlough of the staff who do not deal directly with students, but those workdays before and after the school year are essential to teachers' long-term planning efforts. (The half-day workdays you can have! They're not worth so much, in my opinion.) Gosh, paycuts, fewer teachers, furloughs...

Just wondering if any parents out there ever check their children to see how much attention they are given by a collaborative teacher in a regular class. For any who do not understand, many special needs students are in a regular classroom that has two teachers. One teacher is the regular teacher and the other is a special education teacher who is there to help the students with an IEP. That teacher should be active in the classroom during instruction, directions, tests, and guided practice.

Vice President Joe Biden has declared there is NO money in the stimulus package for building swimming pools. FCBOE's Terri Smith will be inconsolable.

The AJC is reporting that the new and improved Clayton county Board of Education fired their superintendent on Friday.

I've created a summary page of every employee job at the FCBOE and created average pay, minimum pay and maximum pay for each position

The FCBOE has been telling Fayette citizens that student enrollment has been around 22,100 students since last September. LINK

The January FCBOE called session meeting minutes are finally up, one month later.

The highlight is the preliminary findings of the SACS accreditation team:

I am indebted to FC1989 for providing me a link to a matrix of school system expenditures broken down by functional areas.

Hello boys and girls! In today's edition of Sniffles' Soapbox, we'll be discussing the FCBOE and school busses!

Roughly 10%...one out of ten...people employed by our beloved Board of Education are involved with School Bus fleet.

I have spent the last week reconciling the FCBOE Grand Strategic 5-year plan against the audited financial results of the last 3 years.

I'd like to ask a question to current Fayette county students:

What is your opinion on the technology used in Fayette County schools? Is it current or obsolete? Do your teachers make good use of technology or are they hopelessly clueless?

Should creationism (or "intelligent design") be taught as science in Fayette county high schools?

No, it should not.

Thanks to the best Band Director and Assistant Band Director in Fayette County.

The band did outstanding and it did show by all the trophies that you won.

We live in a global marketplace so your comment about doing business elsewhere is not especially relevant. I don't see any evidence that Houston doesn't support keeping jobs locally. I do see evidence that he understands how to use resources wisely and this is why he is a management consultant for Fortune 100 companies. In addition, it may be that this sort of perspective is just what we need to make sure that our students are educated adequately to compete in the global marketplace. We need local leaders in all our elected positions - not just the school board - who have knowledge and experience outside the Fayette County bubble. An especially relevant book on this subject is "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman who has won three Pulitzer Prizes for his investigative writing.

Today's ajc is quoting Clayton School Superintendent John Thompson saying "we have a very slim chance of maintaining accreditation at all". Does anyone know how FCBOE is planning to deal with the new students?

I was looking over some of the responses on the "Who would you vote for" thread and was noticing that a number of people seem conflicted as to the qualifications and/or qualities desired from candidates for the Fayette Board of Education.

I just saw a story about Kathy Cox proposing an idea to push the start of school back even further in August. As I understand this, this is so scores from retesting of our kids could be submitted to federal officials and prove our kids were meeting at least minimum standards. Starting school in mid-August does not allow time for these new scores to collected and submitted.

The AJC has just released the CRCT scores in a school searchable format. Congratulations to Bennett's Mill for having the highest 8th scores in Reading, Language Arts, Math and Science. Rising Starr had the highest Social Studies scores. Fayette Middle had the distinction of having the lowest 8th grade CRCT scores in every single subject.

The following is from the 11 Alive website. It's about time somebody questions Cox and her handling of the CRCT fiasco...She's making the state of Georgia's education system look worse than it already does.

Summertime fun for children 4 - 14.

The 3 time state dance champions, McIntosh HS Chiefettes, will host their 15th annual mini summer camps from 9 a.m. - noon on June 16 - 20 at McIntosh High School gym and from July 14 - 18 at the JC Booth Middle School gym (a performance recital will be held on the Friday of each session at 5:30 p.m.)

Dave Houston's web site says "Tax-deductible donations can be made to "Campaign to Elect Dave Houston" in the form of cash or check." The mission of his campaign is to provide ethical and fiscal responsibility to the taxpayers.

Why is this happening when the tax base over the last 10 years grew by leaps and bounds? Who was watching the FCBOE run the system into the red? Into the can? Why weren't they prudent with the tax payers money? If they had planned properly, they wouldn't be looking to raise the millage rate.