Thursday, May 10, 2012
The county Board of Education keeps both options on the table leading up to the passage of a final budget next week.
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Thursday, May 10, 2012
We won’t know how many furlough days and how many school days will be part of the next Cobb County school year until the Cobb Board of Education passes the final fiscal 2013 budget May 17. The school board delved into the Cobb County School District’s fiscal woes during Wednesday’s work session. Most of the talk was long-term, big-picture stuff: the state’s role in putting Cobb in a budget hole; the likelihood of next year’s budget being much tougher; the effects of state charter schools; the declining educational opportunities in the county; and the need for a dramatically different educational model. “We are not providing the education that Cobb County expects, and we’ve got to find another way,” Post 7 board member Alison Bartlett said…
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Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The Cobb Parents site says it's not too late to change the 2012-13 Cobb County School District schedule.
Backers of a balanced Cobb County School District calendar have launched a website in the hope of changing the schedule for next school year. Cobb Parents started last week and offers a link to email the seven Cobb Board of Education members at once. The goal is to persuade them to switch from the current traditional calendar to the balanced calendar the district used in 2010-11. The board dumped the balanced calendar with less than six months’ notice Feb. 17 on a 4-3 vote, and the Cobb Parents organizers hope for a repeat in reverse. “There is a unique opportunity for Cobb County to come together to give input to the board on the 2012-2013 calendar,” said Thom Gray, a father of four, including three in Cobb County schools. “The board’s …
Friday, December 9, 2011
The Cobb County Board of Education approved a memorandum promising to comply with state laws on records and meetings without admitting past violations.
A Georgia senior assistant attorney general focused on the Cobb County Board of Education’s future rather than past “serious accusations” during a training session Thursday on open records and public meetings. Stefan Ritter said the allegations of open meetings violations weren’t bad enough to warrant more than the training and a memorandum of understanding to ensure compliance with state laws. “We did not think this was as egregious as some of the violations we’ve seen” elsewhere, Ritter told Patch. “Nonetheless, we look at this in a forward way. Our goal is not so much to punish people, but to seek compliance to the law.” The memorandum of understanding says that if no evidence of new open records or open meetings violations comes up in …
Friday, November 11, 2011
The Cobb County school board adds a third meeting in January to vote on a new chairman and vice chairman.
Superintendent Michael Hinojosa unveiled a two-to-three-month hiring process for principals aimed at combating the buddy system Wednesday. The Cobb County School District plan would feature a more detailed application process and create school profiles to ensure a “leadership match” to help find candidates who fit a school’s culture. A selection committee led by an area superintendent would include parents, teachers, students (for high school openings), counselors and district executives. Board of Education members would pick one of the two to three parents on the committee but would not be involved directly with the group. “This is a very rigorous process,” Hinojosa told the school board during its monthly work session Wednesday. …
Friday, May 6, 2011
The Cobb County grand jury has closed its inquiry into the Cobb Board of Education without finding anything out of which to make a case.
The grand jury issued its findings Thursday afternoon in a written report covering about two pages. The full report is attached to this article. The grand jury met with six board members April 1 and with the seventh, Chairwoman Alison Bartlett, on April 28, both times in the presence of the board’s attorney, Clem Doyle. Those meetings came “in response to the overwhelming concerns and request presented to the Grand Jury.” The grand jury came away from those sessions knowing what observers of the school board have seen since three new members joined in January: The board has deep divisions to the point of being dysfunctional at times. But the grand jury found nothing illegal. Most of the grand jury’s report focused on the board’s decision …
Thursday, May 5, 2011
The lack of pain and drama now could create huge problems in the next two years, the Board of Education chairwoman warns.
The Cobb County School District is racing toward a budgetary cliff and needs to start hitting the brakes to prevent a catastrophe, Board of Education Chairwoman Alison Bartlett warned her colleagues Wednesday night. “We have a budget right now that is not sustainable,” she said. Speaking just before the school board went through the proposed fiscal 2012 budget line by line for the first time in public, Bartlett said one of the candidates for the superintendent job told the board there are two approaches to budgeting right now: the slide and the cliffhanger. If you use the slide, you cut and save as much as possible every year, accepting that there will be pain along the way. If you choose the cliff, you do everything possible year by year …
Monday, January 17, 2011
Some Cobb County Board of Education members go on the offensive during Friday’s work session.
Cobb County Schools Superintendent Fred Sanderson’s comment seemed to go unnoticed during Friday’s hot debate over eliminating administrators' payouts for unused vacation when they leave the school district. “I think you’re talking about only a 1 percent part of the budget,” he said. New Board of Education Chairwoman Alison Bartlett, whose Post 7 includes Osborne High, started the discussion during the board's work session by asking the district’s chief financial officer, Mike Addison, what the cost for accrued vacation time would be if all of the district’s eligible employees retired in June. Addison said it would be $7.1 million for 1,500 employees. “I see this as a liability as it comes out of the general fund,” said Bartlett, who …
JoEllen Smith
11:31 am on Friday, May 11, 2012
On the one hand I'm glad that they are only down to 25 potential teacher cuts rather than 300.. However, 25 teacher lay-offs, all in elementary schools? I truly believe they can find that money somewhere. Point of service is always the LAST place that should be cut. That is what we "believe" we are paying for! more ›