CUMMING, Ga. — From her home, Meg Sparwath can hear the West Forsyth High School marching band — Pride of the West — rehearsing.
Sparwath lives in the Ashebrooke neighborhood, about 1.5 miles from the school, but her daughter will not be attending West.
"They are trying to move us to Forsyth Central High School, which is over four times as far for us," Sparwath said.
Sparwath is one of several Ashbrooke residents upset at the newly redistricted student attendance lines, which places the Bethelview corridor students at a new high school.
Redistricting for the 2012-13 school year also adjusts feeder patterns and moves students from North Forsyth HS and West Forsyth HS to Central HS, which is under capacity by about 750 students.
"Because there's no funding for any new high schools or any additions in the foreseeable future, we have to relieve West and also populate Central," Jennifer Caracciolo, Forsyth County Schools spokeswoman, said. "West is not over capacity, but looking into the future, they will be next year."
North Forsyth High School is currently over capacity.
Forsyth County School officials began the redistricting process in order to populate the new Kelly Mill Elementary School.
The school district staff has received feedback on the first and second drafts of the 2012-13 attendance lines from local school councils at impacted schools that also include Chattahoochee Elementary School, Coal Mountain ES, Cumming ES, Sawnee ES, Vickery Creek ES, Whitlow ES, Liberty Middle School, Little Mill MS, North Forsyth MS, Otwell MS and Vickery Creek MS.
Feedback on the proposed redistricting of students is being collected until Oct. 31 through the Forsyth County Schools website www.forsyth.k12.ga.us.
Sparwath said the proposals she has seen do not include changes to the Bethelview corridor that residents have requested. She plans to continue to oppose the drafts to the local school councils and the Forsyth County Board of Education. Sparwath said among her concerns is longer travel times if there's after-school participation.
"Basically, we think they are not supporting us and they are just worrying about numbers," Sparwath said.
Caracciolo said the board of education wants to let local school councils collect the information prior to finalizing the maps in November.
At 7 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 25, a public hearing will take place Forsyth Central High School, 520 Tribble Gap Road in Cumming. Several parents will voice their concerns with the redistricting, and school board members will be there to hear the feedback from the community. They will discuss all of the concerns they collect at their Nov. 3 meeting.
"Now, it's opened up for everyone to give feedback," Caracciolo said.
Labels: Forsyth, Forsyth County, Forsyth County Schools, Forysth, Forysth County, school district, School Redistricting, schools
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 10:30 AM
A west Georgia school district has five months to make improvements or face losing accreditation.
The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools voted Sunday to place the Haralson County schools on probation, SACS president and chief executive officer Mark A. Elgart said. Haralson County, which has 4,000 students, is about 50 miles west of Atlanta on the Alabama border.
SACS cited Haralson for problems similar to the issues that led to Clayton County schools’ accreditation loss. On Sept. 1, Clayton, which has 50,000 students, became the first district to lose accreditation in the nation in the past 40 years.
SACS investigators said they found governance problems by Haralson school board members, including micromanaging, not following their own policies and ethics violations.
Among the problems were board members interfering with employment decisions, telling coaches which students could play sports and moving classrooms without the authority of the board, according to a report from SACS.
The board members’ actions were not only against board policy, but “sound judgment,” SACS wrote.
Haralson has until April to meet seven mandates, including training, following its own policies, amending hiring procedures and following the district’s chain of command.
Like Clayton, Haralson has struggled with governance issues for the past several years. The district was on warning status before SACS moved it to probation this week, Elgart said. In April 2005, SACS also placed Haralson on probation.
Labels: accreditation, haralson county schools, school district, west georgia
# posted by
Brian Vanderhoff @ 2:59 PM
