NOTICE OF ATLANTA BOARD OF EDUCATION-CALLED MEETING:

I am hopeful, that the board will rectify their illogical decision they made at last week’s meeting. After months of cramming the operational model down our throats, where the push they used was waivers and flexibility voted down flexibility through the class-size waiver. At first glance, no one would ever think having small classrooms would not be a good thing. But what they may not know is the unintentional consequences and the impact on schools south of downtown. In a vote last week, it was almost expected that Ms. Meister would vote this way without thought to how it would impact the entire district, but the vote of Briscoe-Brown who is is charged to think district-wide although her roots are north and the biggest of Ms. Collins and Mr. Amos, almost sent me into a spin last week. It was evident they had not spent enough time researching this impact. This would take needed resources from the south side of town. APS currently budgets teacher- student ratio of 14:1. The money would have to be allocated to those schools that are overcrowded, which are mostly housed in the NAHS and Grady clusters. The idea that Mr. Lee would attend and then leave on such a critical subject lends to our thinking of, how do we make sure the board is trained on visionary decisions that impact the entire district. I hope Ms. Meister will consider adding that as a Board Development session. If this vote is not rescinded then we will need them to tell us first how they will come up with the $21-25 million deficit, and most importantly what will have to suffer as a result of the funding to those overcrowded schools. APS has not proven a correlation between overcrowding and low student achievement. In fact, the schools that are most overcrowded are the highest achieving schools. So, we would take resources from low achieving schools and put them in high achieving schools, what an uniformed decision they made collectively. Aside from the thought that I remember this same board cheering and smiling as they presented their one and only candidate for superintendent, lured her away from her school district to start early, asked us to be patient and believe, then undermine her strategy by voting down her recommendation. I wonder which board members contacted their communities on this important issue and which did not. I hope they are ready to redeem themselves for such an uninformed vote and decision. Let’s hope so. I hope that we will make wise choices that impact the entire school district that provides improved outcomes for all children through the lens of the Equity Audit. This was not done with that in mind. I ask the board to make decisions with a total vision and not in silos, when we do that we get decisions such as that and a emergency call meeting at 5:30 during the last 10 days of school prior to the break. Please, let’s get it right this time…The future of Atlanta’s children depend on it!!!