Richmond County school board member Alex Howard wants to stop the flow of children into Columbia County, and he has ideas on how to do it.
Mr. Howard wants to give parents more choices, return to the junior high school grade structure and make A.R. Johnson Health Science and Engineering Magnet High School one of the premier schools in the country.
The Richmond County school system is working through "rightsizing," the process of determining how best to use its facilities and whether any should be closed.
On Thursday night, the school board approved the timeline for the process, which states that rightsizing will begin being implemented in January.
Through this process, Mr. Howard would like to see seventh and eighth grades added to A.R. Johnson and ties with the Medical College of Georgia strengthened, he said after the meeting.
"(MCG is) sitting right in front of us," he said. "We need to take advantage of it."
He would also like to expand Richmond County's successful magnet program in other ways. He would like to add an International Baccalaureate program to Langford Middle School. Langford feeds into the Academy of Richmond County, which already has an IB program.
"The whole plan is for parents to have more choices," Mr. Howard said. "My goal is to cut back on students leaving the school system because of middle school."
He has noticed that many parents remove their children from Richmond County in the fourth grade and take them to Columbia County, so they have one year in a new school system before starting middle school.
To curb that trend, he wants to move toward a junior high school setup beginning in west Augusta by expanding Sue Reynolds, Lake Forest Hills and Copeland elementary schools to include sixth grade.
"That's the early stages of what I'm working on," Mr. Howard said with a grin, not wanting to tip his hand on other ideas he has in the works. "I don't want parents to leave, because our schools are turning around."
Reach Greg Gelpi at (706) 828-3851 or greg.gelpi@augustachronicle.com.
IN OTHER ACTION
The board also:
- Adopted a policy to immediately begin asking courts for flexibility in dealing with stock given to the board with restrictions. This won't affect the board's shares of Wachovia stock, which it already owns.
- Approved spending $813,174 to ensure every teacher has a dedicated computer to confidentially enter grades into iParent and to use the new "data manager" to instantly assess a child's strengths and weakness and tailor instruction appropriately.
- Named Sego Middle School Assistant Principal Sonya Bailey the new principal of Lake Forest Hills Elementary.
Comments
Another idea, one that would work, is allow school vouchers for several years so the government schools would be able to adjust to the competition. A one year trial won't do the trick. Allow a ten year voucher trial and see how much the school system improves. Richmond County schools would have the opposite problem they're having now.
Returning to the Junior High system is something I have been preaching for years. Ninth-graders would hopefully become the leaders of their respective schools -- the "Seniors" -- and would not fall through the cracks of an intense high school curriculum. My experience reveals that by tenth-grade, a lot of teenage angst dissipates and the maturity level rises. Keep the ninth-graders in Junior High and let them mellow with age.
Well now that they have spent almost a million dollars to add more computers to the 9000 they have already, did they pass any rules that govern how, when and what teachers must post on IPARENT. I would bet they didn't and therefore we are saddled with another broken program. Of course that will not matter, we are saddled with a board that thinks they work for the superintendant. Please RCBOE start posting the TOTAL budget for the TAXPAYERS to see and not just the summary that dosen't tell us why we are spending millions for supply. What supply is it and what is it used for are the questions that we need answers for!!!
I almost forgot, does Mr. Howard really believe that in these days of prosperity people are selling their houses and moving to Columbia county for one year of schooling. I didn't know the economy is so robust that people are easily buying and selling houses with no problems, and gas is cheap as water and jobs are so plentiful that people are changing them like undershirts. Well apparently he believes the above because he says that people are moving at will just to put their kids in a single class. And by the way, I thought A.R. Johnson was one of the PREMIER schools in the country, so why the remark about making it so?
WHAT are you people thinking....good Lord we are entering the age of Mommy Government will done be solve it. What we have to do is PASS A LAW that MANDATES the highest performing in Columbia County (say Greenbriar and what not) must be BUSSED into the WAR ZONE high schools to share the pain. Or we could take the insane tactic of making kids responsible...(Nah thats stupid the Chosen One will solve it) (LOL)
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