June 3 - 6:30 pm. at Calhoun Elementary School, 101 Raymond King, Drive, Calhoun 30701
The meeting will last about two and a half hours. Nothing is required to prepare for the meetings. An introductory session will prepare participants for the discussion of setting a vision for public education in Georgia.
Why is This Important Now?
• Our students are now competing with students around the world, not just within the U.S.
• While many jobs are being automated by technology, the areas that computers can’t mimic are
the ability to solve unpredictable problems and the ability to engage in complex communications.
• Students who obtain more education will be at a great advantage; increasingly, some postsecondary
education or technical training is essential for an opportunity to support a family or secure a
middle-class lifestyle.
Urge citizens to lend their voice to transforming our public schools. The success of this initiative requires the active participation of as many citizens as possible. For more information go to: www.visionforpubliced.org. There you will also find links to follow the initiative on facebook and Twitter.
GSBA and GSSA are voluntary associations providing information, research and training for school boards and local school superintendents in Georgia.
Source:
Fulltime teachers: 61.3
Student/Teacher Ratio: 13.9
Eligible for discounted/free lunch: 352 ( 41 %)
http://www.schooldigger.com/go/GA/schools/0072000305/school.aspx
FYI: I'm always at meetings.
I look forward to you both attending the meeting Thursday. You both seem to have lots of great ideas.
Sugar Valley, I can not figure out your numbers. You say that there are 61.3 full time teachers with 3300 students. Your 13.9 teachers per kid does not compute. Please explain.
Thanks for your excellent opinions.
However, in this case, it's not.
There are too many additives tossed into the education pot. We've got Graduation Coaches, Math Coaches, Reading Coaches,Instructional Coordinators, Special Ed teachers out of our yazoo, counselors, nurses, secretaries, assistants, parapros, sport coaches, athletic directors, etc.
However, the true troopers, the REGULAR classroom teachers, have no where near the number of kids in the classroom that the figures insinuate.
Substitute in any system, and you'll rarely find less than 20 plus kids in a room...upper grades even more.
We've added so many layers of bureaucratic crap that it's unbelieveable. Nearly every special ed kid has a full time teacher or parapro assigned to him alone. 1 spec. ed 25 regular students....divided by 2 teachers= 13 per teacher. Bull figures...Special ed is bankrupting the system, as well as the cost of athletics.
Both are needed....In fact, one could argue that all of the jobs are needed.
However, when times are tough, one needs to make tough decisions and cuts.
It'll never happen.
Hey...it's the American way!
Although many here state in recent years, no new hires...
2009 - Page 280
Calhoun City Schools 463 employees
3,300 students (7 students/employee)
Full time teachers: 61.3
Student/Teacher Ratio: 13.9
Gordon County Schools 1,153 employees
7,000 students (6 students/employee)
Full time teachers: 78.1
Student/Teacher Ratio: 12.0
Calhoun City Schools 408 employees
3,300 students (8 students/employee)
Gordon County Schools 965 employees
6,000 students
(6.21students/employee)
Teacher's spend more time trying to get the sorry 3 or 4 little buzzards to behave than trying to educate the 20 good kids in class.
I had a teacher that if she snapped her fingers at you one time, you had better stop what you were doing, or else the next snap you got was a paddle across your butt.
Good kids are good kids...bad kids are bad. We got too many principals today who are huggers...instead of understanding that Johnny needs his butt whipped, they try to analyze why Johnny set fire to his athletic supporter and tryed to hang the student pygmy exchange student from Nairobi with grannys stretch stockings.
We've given new meaning to teaching the 3 r's....Today, kids think that means "Revoltin', Riotin', and Refusin.'"
We've got liberals in nearly every history classroom, teaching kids that America stinks, that we need to be ashamed of our accomplishments, and that we're the sorriest country in the world.
We've even got a President who traveled around the globe, shook hands with every dictator, bent over double nearly bowing and kissing the floor to Muslim leaders as well as the Chinese, and apologized for what he considered the great sins of America.
Wow! Talk about leading by example!
I'm concerned about what we're NOT teaching in our classrooms. We've taken out the very things that made America great, and replaced Franklin, Jefferson and Washington with Chavez, Truth, and Gonzalez.
1) Voters who have watched their pensions disappear, their 401ks shrink, their housing values decline and their jobs vanish aren’t going to have much sympathy with education.
2) Education pensions are too expensive.