State board votes to intervene in Montgomery County schools
The state school board voted unanimously Thursday to intervene in the Montgomery County school system because of concerns about academic and financial performance. Superintendent Michael Sentance said in a press conference after the vote that too many of the system’s schools were “at a low level and staying at a low level.” “It’s my personal belief that a capital city school system should be a shining example of what public education should be in the state. It should be a model,” Sentance said. State law allows the Alabama Department of Education to take over school systems because of problems with academics or fiscal management. Sentance said Thursday said there were concerns with both aspects of the Montgomery system. The state has intervened in several school systems in the past, including Selma and Birmingham. What state intervention might look like depends on the school system and reason for the intervention. In Selma, the state placed the school superintendent on leave and assigned someone to assume his duties. Sentance, said he didn’t know what all would happen in Montgomery, but said he envisions a collaborative process. One issue he said they will address is making sure classroom teachers have adequate knowledge in their subjects. “We have to raise the understanding of content with a lot of teachers in schools, starting with elementary on up. We would be coming in with some ideas how to do that,” Sentance said. Intervention does not automatically bring more money. The state could help the system with grants and will provide additional personnel. Montgomery County is a large school system that included a mixture of high-performing magnet schools — which skim off the best students and boast some of the highest test scores in the country — and high-poverty schools with low test scores. Sentance said the state will only get involved in schools that are struggling. The system had 10 schools labeled as “failing” for being in the bottom 6 percent of standardized test scores. Sentance said many more are chronically struggling, enough to trigger the state intervention option. The state board vote is the first step in the intervention process and sends a notice to the local system about the board’s intent to intervene. The local system has 21 days to respond to the intervention notice and could propose its own plan to address the problem. The state board will vote in February on whether to proceed. Some Montgomery school officials said Thursday that they welcome the move. Montgomery County Board of Education President Robert Porterfield said the state can bring needed resources to help do what is “best for children.” “There is a great heart here to improve schools,” Sentance said. State Board member Ella Bell, who represents much of Montgomery, said she thought the county schools had been suffered from “historic neglect” and a chronic underfunding because of the county’s low tax support for schools. “This is the first time the state has ever, ever reached out to bring children of color, our poor white children, up to a level of prominence with all the other school children in this state,” she said. Republished with permission of The Associated Press.
Birmingham schools superintendent Dr. Kelley Castlin-Gacutan fired after one year
After one year at the helm of the city of Birmingham’s public school system, Superintendent Dr. Kelley Castlin-Gacutan‘s contract was terminated Thursday by the Birmingham Board of Education. The board voted to terminate Castlin-Gacutan Thursday evening by a 6-3 vote, during a special meeting called to discuss governance and leadership of the Birmingham school system. “This school year just started and we’re going to terminate her without cause it’s inappropriate and it’s wrong,” Board Member Randall Woodfin said at the meeting. Woodfin, along with Lyord Watson and Brian Giantinna, were the three members who voted against terminating Castlin-Gacutan’s contract. Woodfin said the district needs to learn why it can’t keep a Superintendent. “We all need to challenge ourselves to figure out why we continue to have these issues.” Per her employment contract, the vote served as Castlin-Gacutan’s 60 days notice of termination. For her final two months, she will be on paid administrative leave. While the details of her contract were debated at the meeting, the Birmingham school system will have to pay out Castlin-Gacutan’s remaining salary and benefits for the next two years of her contract, which was set to expire on June 30, 2018. Those payments could total over $400,000 as Castlin-Gacutan was being paid $202,000 a year. Prior to being named Superintendent in Birmingham, Castlin-Gacutan served as Deputy Superintendent of School Operations and Interim Superintendent in the Bibb County School District in Macon, Georgia. She was a seasoned educator with 24 years of experience including classroom teacher, assistant principal, principal, district level administrator, and university professor/director. An explicit reason was not given for her termination, though fiscal responsibility was brought up during the meeting. Following the termination vote, the board named longtime administrator and director of schools for zone four, Larry Contri, interim superintendent.
Alabama’s first charter school approved for Mobile
Plans to open Alabama’s first charter school have been approved. The Alabama Charter School Commission voted Tuesday to allow the Accel Day and Evening Academy to begin operations in Mobile. The school will serve students at least 16 years of age who have dropped out or fallen behind academically. “What we really want to do is use the charter opportunity as a way to take it to the next scale, to serve the more than 2 -thousand young people down on the Gulf Coast of Mobile who really need this option,” says Jeremiah Newell of the Mobile Area Education Foundation. The Alabama Legislature passed a bill in February 2015 authorizing charter schools, which are publicly funded but have more operational freedom than traditional public schools, for the first time. Alabama was the 43rd state to pass a charter school law. On Tuesday, the 10-member Commission, chaired by former state Superintendent Ed Richardson, interviewed three applicants hoping to start charter schools in their areas. Edge Preparatory School: Based in Huntsville, the school would be primarily intended for students zoned for elementary schools in lower-income areas. Accel Day and Evening Academy: The Mobile Area Education Foundation plans to start this high school for students 16 and older who have dropped out or fallen behind. The Sports Leadership and Management Foundation (SLAM): based in Miami, the school plans to start a school in the Huntsville area for pre-kindergarten through second grade that will use learning programs based on sports themes with a heavy focus on science and technology. Only the Mobile school was outright approved, which is slated to open for the academic year beginning in August 2017. SLAM was conditionally approved, but the Commission says operators must get approval under a federal court order on desegregation. The Commission rejected plans for another charter school in Huntsville.
Corporal punishment persists in many Alabama schools
Think being yelled at by a teacher or being sent to detention is bad? Nearly 19,000 Alabama students were paddled in the 2013-2014 school year. That’s according to newly available data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which found more than 4,000 schools across the country, and several within Alabama, still use corporal punishment as a form of discipline. Despite calls from the U.S. Department of Education to curb punitive discipline — which has been shown to affect minority and disabled students disproportionately — Alabama and 18 other states still allow corporal punishment in their public schools, although parental permission is often required. In fact, 107 of Alabama’s 133 school districts use corporal punishment, which ranks the Yellowhammer Sate third in the nation in percentage of students paddled overall, at 2.5 percent. Several medical and human rights groups have called for an end to the practice of paddling, calling it ineffective and potentially harmful. “You want to keep kids in the classroom, but to suggest that the only way to keep them in is to beat them with a stick is ludicrous,” said Dennis Parker, director of the ACLU’s Racial Justice Program. “Paddling can cause pain, humiliation, and in some cases deep bruising or other lasting physical or mental injury,” an ACLU-Human Rights Watch report said. In Alabama, males are paddled at a 4.5-to-1 rate over females. The data also shows black students disproportionately receive physical discipline as opposed to white students.
William J. Canary: Observing National School Choice Week
More than 1,000 students, parents, educators, and legislative and business leaders, observed National School Choice Week at the Alabama Capitol on Tuesday. People from across Alabama assembled to support school choice that gives parents the opportunity to benefit their children and communities. School choice is a tool not only for parents and their children but also for business because today’s students are tomorrow’s leaders and employees. The Business Council of Alabama supported the Alabama School Choice Coalition rally and supports scholarships, fully funded volunteer pre-kindergarten for all Alabama 4-year-olds, and charter schools. Alabama’s school choice opportunities began in 2013 with passage of the Alabama Accountability Act that includes giving children who attend under-performing schools the opportunity to attend schools of their choice. The Parent Refundable Tax Credit program gives parents whose child is zoned to a failing school the opportunity to receive a tax credit to transfer their child to a nonfailing public or private school. The Tax Credits for Contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations program allows low-income students who are zoned to failing public schools to receive scholarship to attend schools of their choice. Last year’s School Choice and Opportunity Act created an application process for local school boards to establish up to 10 new or conversion public charter schools. This year we support efforts to take a fresh look at teaching and ways to reward our valuable teachers. We in the business community continue to pledge to be partners with education because we all have a stake in the future. • • • William J. Canary is president and CEO of the Business Council of Alabama
