Board member Brenda Battle-Jordan said teachers and staff along with administration members have all agreed to wage freezes, with a potential 1.5 percent increase in the 2014-15 school year if the district is on stable financial ground. "We had a lot to dig out of. We've got the right superintendent in place," she said. "While she was still the (elementary) principal, she worked (as superintendent) with no extra pay."
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I thought you’d like this:http://s.mlive.com/YMEfsIBBoard member Brenda Battle-Jordan said teachers and staff along with administration members have all agreed to wage freezes, with a potential 1.5 percent increase in the 2014-15 school year if the district is on stable financial ground.
“We had a lot to dig out of. We’ve got the right superintendent in place,” she said. “While she was still the (elementary) principal, she worked (as superintendent) with no extra pay.”Stevens looks at a move in the fall by the district to begin facilitating its own alternative education program as a potential way to increase the district’s appeal for local families.
“We’re hoping additional students will come and we can increase our numbers,” she said of the new program. Battle-Jordan said a key to making the changes work in the district is building up confidence amongst the community and leaders within the school buildings.“They are working with us, the staff, the superintendent and principals,” she said. “When you have an administration, staff members all that you can trust… you need that among everyone.”
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MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, MI — As state educators push to dissolve failing school districts, Westwood Heights is fighting to retain the position it has held in Genesee County for more than 50 years.
The district is emerging from a more than $140,000 budget deficit following a tumultuous period that included a total of eight superintendents in eight years, a lawsuit and settlement with former Superintendent Deborah Hunter-Harvill and seeing Westwood’s Hamady Junior/High School land on the state’s Persistently Lowest Achieving list.
The district got some good news last week when the state Senate Fiscal Agency removed Westwood from a bill analysis regarding potential dissolution of some school districts.
Although the district is below the bill’s criteria that districts have at least 2,500 students, Westwood officials argued they should not be included because the district did not meet three remaining criteria for dissolution.Westwood Heights Superintendent Salli Stevens is pushing forward with initiative to rectify the budget, while implementing changes to drive up test scores and open an alternative education building to try and increase the student population.
After years of prosperity following the formation of the district in 1957 by the merger of Beckwith and Payson schools — the district was only about a decade old before it started down a rocky path.
Enrollment in the district climbed to more than 2,400 students by 1969, but student numbers began tailing off in 1970 leading to the closure of three school buildings by the mid 1970s. Hamady Junior High was closed in the early 1980s, with sixth through eighth grade students moved to the high school and elementary school facilities.
Parents took to picketing outside the district in 1985, after the district moved to close Gillespie Elementary School due to budget woes and declining enrollment that have continued into the present day with the additional closure of Hamady and Westwood elementaries in 2007 and transition of those students to the former middle school building on North Jennings Road.
Stevens was named interim superintendent in 2009, the district’s eighth top official in as many years, after Hunter-Harvill was placed on indefinite administrative leave in September 2009 following allegations she was not following board directives after a little more than one year into a three-year contract.
Hunter-Harvill, who was hired as superintendent of the Buena Vista school district in 2012, then filed suit against the Westwood Heights district, alleging a district employee had taken part in fraud and embezzlement. Hunter-Harvill reached a $167,000 settlement with the school district in April 2010 that paid her the duration of her contract through June 2011.
“Because I did nothing wrong, they had to pay me,” she said. The school board had granted Hunter-Harvill a contractual stipulation that if she were ever fired before the end of the agreement she’d receive the full financial amount.
Stevens said the district fell into about a $150,000 deficit in 2011, noting “former administrators” had created some budget issues in Westwood Heights, but she declined further comment. District officials are not allowed to reference Hunter-Harvill per terms of the settlement.
The only item Hunter-Harvill said she negotiated while at Westwood Heights was an insurance change for teachers that she said “saved the district a lot of money.”
Hunter-Harvill, who is now superintendent of the financially struggling Buena Vista school district in Saginaw County, noted there was no deficit when she left the Westwood Heights district in 2010.
Margaret Green, Hamady High principal and acting superintendent, credits Stevens with going to each group in the district and asking them to coming up with solutions to the budget woes and staff with sticking to budgeted figures that were offered by the administration.
Board member Brenda Battle-Jordan said teachers and staff along with administration members have all agreed to wage freezes, with a potential 1.5 percent increase in the 2014-15 school year if the district is on stable financial ground.
“We had a lot to dig out of. We’ve got the right superintendent in place,” she said. “While she was still the (elementary) principal, she worked (as superintendent) with no extra pay.”
The most recent budget figures show the district will have a projected $611,000 budget surplus by the end of the 2013-14 school year, or roughly 5 percent of its expenditures. Strides have also been taken in educational reform after Hamady Junior/High School fell into the stateâs Persistently Lowest Achieving category in 2010.
District officials submitted a plan with the state in November 2010 to reverse course, with Stevens pointing to the addition of 25 minutes onto the student scheduled which allow for an extra class period at day’s end along with slots for remedial classes. MME scores for 11th grade Westwood Heights students showed improvements in all five testing categories.
Flint resident Natisha Langston-Varner was optimistic about the path the school district is on for the future.
“I thought it was positive,” said Langston-Varner of the added instructional time. “I know my daughter (Nataysha) just graduated from there. It seemed like she got the help she needed.”
She noted administrations took extra time during the recent school year to inform parents regarding any upcoming standardized testing being done and teachers took extra time in preparation.
“We got calls home from the principal about testing going on and for students to get a good night sleep and all that,” said Langston-Varner, whose 15-year-old daughter Nakesha is entering 10th grade in the fall at Hamady High School. “They informed the parents with a lot of calls home. Maybe that’s why the testing went up.”
“Overall, I think they are doing pretty good with the students,” she said.
Stevens looks at a move in the fall by the district to begin facilitating its own alternative education program as a potential way to increase the district’s appeal for local families.
“We’re hoping additional students will come and we can increase our numbers,” she said of the new program. Battle-Jordan said a key to making the changes work in the district is building up confidence amongst the community and leaders within the school buildings.“They are working with us, the staff, the superintendent and principals,” she said. “When you have an administration, staff members all that you can trust… you need that among everyone.”
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In the Charleston, SC area, many 912 members and other Conservatives are forming a group to fight Common Core Standards in South Carolina. If you live in the area and are interested in joining the fight, please contact Bill Bates at [email protected] (there is an underscore between bill and bates). If you live someplace else, consider starting a group there and/or get your local 912′s and others to get involved. This is extremely important.
Cathy
‘I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would
have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress..
-Ronald Reagan
Common Core Standards’ Devastating Impact
Posted by Michael CHILDS, Admin II on April 4, 2013 at 5:00pm in Patriot Action Alerts
Common Core Standards’ Devastating Impact
Since taking office, the Obama Administration has been intent on controlling what is taught at every grade level in all of the nation’s schools. It has used its flagship “Race to the Top” competitive grant program to bring states together to adopt the K-12 standards developed by a joint project of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). It has also suggested, in its 2009 Blueprint for Education Reform, that adoption of these common standards could one day be a qualification for states wanting future Title 1 dollars for low-income schools.
The Common Core State Standards provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them. The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy.
http://www.corestandards.org/
Education ‘Reform’ 101: How The Common Core Relates To Other Big Ideas Sweeping Florida Schools
That’s a familiar refrain in K-12 education. And the latest big thing may be bigger than all the others: It’s the Common Core education standards that Florida and 45 other states are now putting in place. And it has public schools across the country sitting on the cusp of a massive change in nearly every aspect of how math and English are taught, learned and tested.
But how does this big thing relate to all the other big things in education that you’ve probably heard about? Here’s a StateImpact survival guide to recent education overhauls.
http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/04/04/education-reform-101-…
States Must Reject National Education Standards While There Is Still Time
The Obama Administration is intent on nationalizing the content taught in every public school across America. Without congressional approval, the Administration has used a combination of carrots and sticks to spur states to sign on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Common Core includes standards for English Language Arts (ELA) and mathematics, and federally funded national assessments have been crafted to align with the standards.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/04/states-must-reject…
“Economist Debates: State capitalism: Statements”
“This house believes that state capitalism is a viable alternative to liberal …. Mr Bremmer defines state capitalism as a system in which political elites control … capitalism are autocracies—most importantly China but also Russia” – http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/802
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Who’s Behind the Common Core Curriculum?
Like so many education reform initiatives that seem to arise out of nowhere, the Common Core State Standards is another of these sweeping phantom movements that have gotten their impetus from a cadre of invisible human beings endowed with inordinate power to impose their ideas on everybody.
For example, the idea of collecting intimate personal data on public school students and teachers seems to have arisen spontaneously in the bowels of the National Center for Education Statistics in Washington. It required a small army of education psychologists to put together the data handbooks, which are periodically expanded to include more personal information.
Nobody knows who exactly authorized the creation of such a dossier on every student and teacher in American public schools, but the program exists and is being paid for by the taxpayer. And strange as it may seem, it arose seemingly out of nowhere, like a vampire, to suck the freedom out of the American people. Unlike Santa’s elves who work behind the scenes to bring happiness to children, these subterranean phantoms work overtime to find ways of making American children miserable.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/reviews/opinion/item/13412-whos-behin…
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Catholic schools embrace Common Core
The Common Core isn’t just for public schools anymore.These days, private schools across the country are jumping on the public education standards bandwagon, in many cases restructuring their traditional curricula to meet the nearly national Common Core, the new set of educational standards and tests for public schools.
http://www.mansfieldnewsjournal.com/article/AB/20130330/NEWS0102/30…
Our churches should be fighting this with Church schools. But these churches in America dont want to lose that revenue from the coffers so they refuse to open a school. I personally know one church with probably 60 kids in it. Relatively average size church. A large portion of them are home schooled.
When asked why they dont open a school. The pastors first response was that they dont want to spend the money on that, plus they could lose church members if something happened within the school. Meaning they would lose money and that cant have that.
Only about 5% of our Baptist churches have schools, out of a few thousand nation wide.
If you want to change the hearts and minds of the kids, you better start getting your church to think about opening a school.
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See who is behind Common Core…Eli Broad and Bill Gates are just the beginning. I have found equally disturbing information in the Delaware Common Core/CSCOPE curriculum…
http://www.examiner.com/article/making-common-sense-of-common-core
You cannot win this battle on the defensive. They have vision: Indoctrinate the children to a leftist, socialistic point of view. They will do, say, and sacrifice anything to make this happen.
The Conservative vision seems to be a live and let live ho hum sorta thing. React if things get bad enough but overall…do nothing.
In a fight, who would you put your money on?
Honestly, do Conservatives have a plan to take over education, the courts, the federal governement, and the media? Are they pumping billions into these endeavors?
No.
Thought the whole IDEA of home schooling was to remove the government from education of our kids. I said to hell with their curriculum teach the basic reading writing math and the Constitution advancing them through out their home school years and then let the child expand into areas that interest them science,physic,biology,mechanic,carpentry,art whatever. but leave the leftist playbook outside the homeschool
Ronald Reagan had this to say about education’s basic purpose: “We’re beginning to realize, once again, that educat…See More
We Can Bring American Conservative Values Back to Schools, Brenda
We Can Bring American Conservative Values Back to Schools
Ronald Reagan had this to say about education’s basic purpose: “We’re beginning to realize, once again, that education at its core is more than just teaching our young the skills that are needed for a job, however important that is. It’s also about passing on to each new generation the values that serve as the foundation and cornerstone of our free democratic society–patriotism, loyalty, faithfulness, courage, the ability to make the crucial moral distinctions between right and wrong, the maturity to understand that all that we have and achieve in this world comes first from a beneficent and loving God.”
Was Ronald Reagan right when he said that?? Well, was he? Of course he was!!
Why is moral education important for both individuals and society?
The Founding Fathers said that democracy cannot survive unless the citizens are educated, virtuous and ethical.
James Madison said, “To suppose that any form of government will secures liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people are a chimerical idea.” (“chimerical” means wildly fanciful and foolish)
Benjamin Franklin believed the same: “Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters. . . . Nothing is of more importance…. than to form and train up youth in wisdom and virtue.”
So, for almost 200 years, that’s exactly what the public schools did. Moral instruction, grounded moral lessons derived from Biblical sources, was as much a part of the curriculum as reading, writing, and arithmetic. In fact, this type of study was common in our country’s schools until the 1940′s.
So what happened?
Why has formal character education been almost eliminated from the public schools?
It’s somewhat more complicated, but the true basic answer is that Liberal Elites in the Liberal Universities and Liberal Media have tricked School Boards, Administrators, Teachers and Parents to think it is illegal.
It is true that our Supreme Court ruled that teachers may not lead students in prayer in the public schools. That’s unfortunate.
However, the courts have also ruled that it is very legal to teach the traditional moral values that nearly all Americans believe in.
Every great philosopher of education has said that virtue must be joined to learning, and have even put ethical instruction before practical instruction. This includes not only the ability to tell right from wrong, but also instruction in those values necessary to a happy and successful life, such as self-discipline, the ability to work hard, thrift, respect for the law, confidence, citizenship, responsibility, respect for the rights of others, courage of one’s convictions, obedience to proper authority, anticipating the consequences of one’s actions, honesty, tolerance, diligence, fairness, love of democracy and freedom, and many others.
Many public school across the country are teaching these traditional conservative moral values but the vast majority are not.
This is just like the right to keep and bear arms.****Troy, Michigan.Our January 22 meeting marks the beginning of our focus on schools and Brenda Battle Jordan, Westwood Heights School Board Vp President/ Dean Ed. and member of the Genesee County Republican Executive Committee,[www.geneseegop.org] will be among our speakers. Mrs. Jordan has survived 2 recalls vote and won re-election to become Dean of the school board. She will discuss her experience in returning conservative values to public schools.*******************Public officials are rarely known to break ranks with colleagues and report wrongdoing, which makes it all the more impressive that Brenda Battle-Jordan has done just that regarding an illegal meeting of the Westwood Heights Board of Education.Battle-Jordan took the no-nonsense approach of going to state police after the board made an important hiring decision — selecting Cresynthia Devereaux as principal of the Middle/High School — while in closed session.
Battle-Jordan took the no-nonsense approach of going to state police after the board made an important hiring decision — selecting Cresynthia Devereaux as principal of the Middle/High School — while in closed session. There are times when a public body may meet legally outside public purview, such as to discuss pending lawsuits, which drew the Westwood Heights board into a closed session last fall. Battle-Jordan’s complaint was that the board used the occasion to discuss hiring Devereaux, and in doing so violated the state Open Meetings Act.
This important law is meant to secure the public’s right to know, but it works only if those who see it flouted report the offense to authorities. Penalties can be as much as $1,000 for a first offense, and $2,000 plus jail for a second. Without whistle-blowing, public bodies that wished to meet conspiratorially could get away with it. Battle-Jordan’s bold response has helped to stave off any tendencies to fall into that conduct.
Among those who took notice was Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who affirmed recently that the board broke the law. Leyton is opting not to prosecute on a theory that the illegal meeting was held out of ignorance rather that malice. Prosecution would probably be overly heavy-handed, considering the chief wrongdoers have since studied the law and pledged to honor it in the future. But it is a stretch to imagine they had no idea in the first place that they were flouting a provision central to honest and ethical conduct of governmental business.
From a broader perspective, the incident seems to be a further indicator of controversy and dysfunction roiling Westwood Heights, evident by a rapid turnover of administrators and especially by a recall election set for Tuesday. Voters will then weigh in on the political futures of board President Danny Wilkerson, Treasurer Harold McIntyre and Trustee Chereathe Hollinger. The very attitude that lured this board into an Open Meetings Act violation probably has fueled the recall movement, too.
Battle-Jordan took the no-nonsense approach of going to state police after the board made an important hiring decision — selecting Cresynthia Devereaux as principal of the Middle/High School — while in closed session. There are times when a public body may meet legally outside public purview, such as to discuss pending lawsuits, which drew the Westwood Heights board into a closed session last fall. Battle-Jordan’s complaint was that the board used the occasion to discuss hiring Devereaux, and in doing so violated the state Open Meetings Act.
This important law is meant to secure the public’s right to know, but it works only if those who see it flouted report the offense to authorities. Penalties can be as much as $1,000 for a first offense, and $2,000 plus jail for a second. Without whistle-blowing, public bodies that wished to meet conspiratorially could get away with it. Battle-Jordan’s bold response has helped to stave off any tendencies to fall into that conduct.
Among those who took notice was Genesee County Prosecutor David Leyton, who affirmed recently that the board broke the law. Leyton is opting not to prosecute on a theory that the illegal meeting was held out of ignorance rather that malice. Prosecution would probably be overly heavy-handed, considering the chief wrongdoers have since studied the law and pledged to honor it in the future. But it is a stretch to imagine they had no idea in the first place that they were flouting a provision central to honest and ethical conduct of governmental business.
From a broader perspective, the incident seems to be a further indicator of controversy and dysfunction roiling Westwood Heights, evident by a rapid turnover of administrators and especially by a recall election set for Tuesday. Voters will then weigh in on the political futures of board President Danny Wilkerson, Treasurer Harold McIntyre and Trustee Chereathe Hollinger. The very attitude that lured this board into an Open Meetings Act violation probably has fueled the recall movement, too.
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
Progressives are taking the gloves off and are openly saying what they plan to do. If you are a parent or grandparent – you should be very concerned. The link below is what was said on MSNBC. The article was posted on Godfather Politics written by Dave Jolly.
Cathy
‘I have wondered at times about what the Ten Commandments would
have looked like if Moses had run them through the U.S. Congress..
-Ronald Reagan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=N3qtpdSQox0
Kids Belong to Their Communities, Not to Their Parents
One of the key policies of a liberal progressive and socialistic government is to undermine the concept of the family. They seek to destroy the cohesiveness of marriage and parenting.
They’ve been very successful in undermining marriage through the promoting of immoral sexual behavior. Premarital and extramarital sexual behavior has been accepted as being the norm these days. Marriage is no longer considered to be a covenantal relationship between one man and one woman with Jesus Christ as the center. Same-sex marriages are becoming accepted and legalized and the Obama administration is trying to destroy the Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage is considered to be a disposable union that can be thrown away when things get difficult instead of working things out.
With the destruction of marriage comes the undermining of parenting and parental authority. Organizations like Planned Parenthood and the public school system, both of which are funded by the federal and state governments, are actively working to destroy that parent child bond and relationship.
Planned Parenthood even has a section on their website that shows kids how to receive abortions and other sexually related items like condoms, without their parents knowing or approving. They promote sexual activity among teenagers without parental knowledge or authority.
The public schools have been under the control of liberal progressives for the past century. If you look in most public schools, you will find material that promotes homosexuality and same-sex marriage. In many public schools located in metropolitan areas, you’ll also find Planned Parenthood.
The public schools no longer teach anything biblical or patriotic. They teach liberal philosophy that the kids need to think about themselves and their community, but not their families. John Dewey, considered by many to be the father of the modern public school system, believed that the schools could effectively change society in one generation by teaching the kids liberal progressive ideas instead of traditional family and biblical values.
The results of this liberal progressive education are being displayed in many of today’s leaders and prominent people. One such example is Melissa Harris-Perry. She is a product of the public school system. She is an author, professor and MSNBC host.
On her show, she has espoused such liberal philosophies as saying that unborn children are just things that take a great deal of money to turn into human beings. Now, she has spilled the beans about the progressive view of children and the family. On a recent program, Harris Perry stated:
“[We in America] haven’t had a very collective notion that these are our children. [W]e have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities.”
“Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the households, then we start making better investments.”
Read more: http://godfatherpolitics.com/10270/kids-belong-to-their-communities-not-to-their-parents/#ixzz2Pw3MGdWm
MT. MORRIS TOWNSHIP, MI — As state educators push to dissolve failing school districts, Westwood Heights is fighting to retain the position it has held in Genesee County for more than 50 years.
The district is emerging from a more than $140,000 budget deficit following a tumultuous period that included a total of eight superintendents in eight years, a lawsuit and settlement with former Superintendent Deborah Hunter-Harvill and seeing Westwood’s Hamady Junior/High School land on the state’s Persistently Lowest Achieving list.
The district got some good news last week when the state Senate Fiscal Agency removed Westwood from a bill analysis regarding potential dissolution of some school districts.
Although the district is below the bill’s criteria that districts have at least 2,500 students, Westwood officials argued they should not be included because the district did not meet three remaining criteria for dissolution.
Westwood Heights Superintendent Salli Stevens is pushing forward with initiative to rectify the budget, while implementing changes to drive up test scores and open an alternative education building to try and increase the student population.
After years of prosperity following the formation of the district in 1957 by the merger of Beckwith and Payson schools — the district was only about a decade old before it started down a rocky path.
Enrollment in the district climbed to more than 2,400 students by 1969, but student numbers began tailing off in 1970 leading to the closure of three school buildings by the mid 1970s. Hamady Junior High was closed in the early 1980s, with sixth through eighth grade students moved to the high school and elementary school facilities.
Parents took to picketing outside the district in 1985, after the district moved to close Gillespie Elementary School due to budget woes and declining enrollment that have continued into the present day with the additional closure of Hamady and Westwood elementaries in 2007 and transition of those students to the former middle school building on North Jennings Road.
Stevens was named interim superintendent in 2009, the district’s eighth top official in as many years, after Hunter-Harvill was placed on indefinite administrative leave in September 2009 following allegations she was not following board directives after a little more than one year into a three-year contract.
Hunter-Harvill, who was hired as superintendent of the Buena Vista school district in 2012, then filed suit against the Westwood Heights district, alleging a district employee had taken part in fraud and embezzlement. Hunter-Harvill reached a $167,000 settlement with the school district in April 2010 that paid her the duration of her contract through June 2011.
“Because I did nothing wrong, they had to pay me,” she said. The school board had granted Hunter-Harvill a contractual stipulation that if she were ever fired before the end of the agreement she’d receive the full financial amount.
Stevens said the district fell into about a $150,000 deficit in 2011, noting “former administrators” had created some budget issues in Westwood Heights, but she declined further comment. District officials are not allowed to reference Hunter-Harvill per terms of the settlement.
The only item Hunter-Harvill said she negotiated while at Westwood Heights was an insurance change for teachers that she said “saved the district a lot of money.”
Hunter-Harvill, who is now superintendent of the financially struggling Buena Vista school district in Saginaw County, noted there was no deficit when she left the Westwood Heights district in 2010.
Margaret Green, Hamady High principal and acting superintendent, credits Stevens with going to each group in the district and asking them to coming up with solutions to the budget woes and staff with sticking to budgeted figures that were offered by the administration.
Board member Brenda Battle-Jordan said teachers and staff along with administration members have all agreed to wage freezes, with a potential 1.5 percent increase in the 2014-15 school year if the district is on stable financial ground.
“We had a lot to dig out of. We’ve got the right superintendent in place,” she said. “While she was still the (elementary) principal, she worked (as superintendent) with no extra pay.”
The most recent budget figures show the district will have a projected $611,000 budget surplus by the end of the 2013-14 school year, or roughly 5 percent of its expenditures. Strides have also been taken in educational reform after Hamady Junior/High School fell into the stateâs Persistently Lowest Achieving category in 2010.
District officials submitted a plan with the state in November 2010 to reverse course, with Stevens pointing to the addition of 25 minutes onto the student scheduled which allow for an extra class period at day’s end along with slots for remedial classes. MME scores for 11th grade Westwood Heights students showed improvements in all five testing categories.
Flint resident Natisha Langston-Varner was optimistic about the path the school district is on for the future.
“I thought it was positive,” said Langston-Varner of the added instructional time. “I know my daughter (Nataysha) just graduated from there. It seemed like she got the help she needed.”
She noted administrations took extra time during the recent school year to inform parents regarding any upcoming standardized testing being done and teachers took extra time in preparation.
“We got calls home from the principal about testing going on and for students to get a good night sleep and all that,” said Langston-Varner, whose 15-year-old daughter Nakesha is entering 10th grade in the fall at Hamady High School. “They informed the parents with a lot of calls home. Maybe that’s why the testing went up.”
“Overall, I think they are doing pretty good with the students,” she said.
Stevens looks at a move in the fall by the district to begin facilitating its own alternative education program as a potential way to increase the district’s appeal for local families.
“We’re hoping additional students will come and we can increase our numbers,” she said of the new program. Battle-Jordan said a key to making the changes work in the district is building up confidence amongst the community and leaders within the school buildings.
“They are working with us, the staff, the superintendent and principals,” she said. “When you have an administration, staff members all that you can trust… you need that among everyone.”