This morning the DHS Dads group had a meeting with DeKalb School Superintendent R. Stephen Green, prior to the meeting, the group aggregated questions/comments and submitted to them Dr. Green. As the meeting may have been cut a little short because of the water emergency, Dr. Green provided written replies to their inquiries and below are his responses as it was provided to me from the group. I thought the back and forth conversation was worth sharing and thank you Dr. Green for your transparency on these issues.
Responses to questions for Dunwoody
HS DADS Group
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Q.
Can Kingsley field be improved? It slopes toward the school and the water flow
is causing drainage problems and erosion to trees and sidewalks.
Also, can Chestnut field be improved? Could both fields be used and
maintained by the city?
A. We can approach the City of Dunwoody to
see if they would like to enter into an intergovernmental agreement for the
upgrade and maintenance of the Chestnut ES and Kingsley ES fields.
This
would be similar to the current agreement we have with the City for the football
field and track at Peachtree MS, where the City maintains the school
district-owned facility.
Q. DHS
is already hundreds of students over capacity. What specific actions is Dr.
Green taking to address school over-crowding? DHS doesn’t have enough of
the following to adequately serve our children:
•
Classrooms
•
Cafeteria
space
•
Bathrooms
•
Locker
Room showers/lockers
•
Etc.
•
We have $17.7 million 26-classroom
addition planned for Dunwoody HS to be completed by fall 2022. A Construction
Advisory Committee (CAC), a sub-committee of the school council (now Parent
Advisory Council) will collaborate with the architect of record in what
improvements could be included as part of the scope of work within the
Board-approved budget.
Q. Status update on the renovation of the
school.
•
What
is the plan for the growing school population at DHS?
•
How
DHS to address the growing student population until the expansion is ready in
2021?
•
More
trailers?
•
We will have more portable
classrooms until the addition is complete in fall of 2022. This summer,
we will bring out one more quad (4 classrooms) with restrooms. We are
currently working with the architect of record to ensure the placement of the
portable classrooms will fit relative to the possible location of the proposed
addition.
Q. What about parking for students,
teachers and visitors?
A.
We will add more parking as part of the classroom expansion.
Q. What
is DCSDs’ intention for the land owned on Chamblee-Dunwoody Rd. where the
former Middle School was torn down?
Couldn't this be leveraged to
educate students in any way?
Unless there’s a school building
coming to relieve student crowding, why isn’t the land sold and the money put
back into serving existing students?
DCSD has held this land for
approximately 15 years without our students benefiting in any way.
•
The land is valuable and could
bring in more revenue to the school district. We have looked at possible
options for this, including support/office needs for the school district.
We are still reviewing this and the Board could make a decision to sell the
land.
• Staffing for the school – currently
two staff members (1 is brand new this year) handle all of the 504 and IEP
processing and testing.
• Each school is staffed with counselors, social workers and
psychologists and other support persons that assist with the Section
504 process and special education staff (teachers and case
managers) and support (LTSE) that ensure goals listed on
the IEP's of students are met.
•
504
Plan/Hospital Homebound Chair # 1
•
Dr.
Thenita Williams
•
(Students with last
names L-Z)
•
504
Plan Chair # 2
•
Amy Dyche- newest counselor hired in November
•
(Students with last names A-K)
•
Number
of students with active 504 plan
•
220
•
Number of
students who receive HHB Instruction
•
12
Additional
note: MTSS Chair facilitates SST meetings and monitors data collection
•
Name
of Lead Teacher for Special Education
•
Coleen Conway
•
Name
of Special Education Department Chair
•
Rose Abraham
•
Total
Number of SPED Teachers
•
16
•
Co-Taught
•
11 co-taught teachers
•
Resource
•
1 Teacher
•
ID
•
3 Teachers (2 MID/MOID and 1
SID/PID). 1 one to one Teacher for a student
•
Number
of case managers
•
16
•
Number
of students with IEP’s
•
178
•
Who specifically made the decision last August to
require DCS teachers to attend a day long program at the Infinite Energy Center
in fundamentally an “employee rally”?
•
The
Superintendent and the Board of Education approved the Opening of Schools
Convocation on August 4, 2017.
•
How was funding for that activity reached when DCS can’t seem
to fund some of the very basic necessities?
For example, we
couldn’t get DCS to pay for buses to transport students to their Football Camp
and private donors (via the Dunwoody Gridiron Club) had to pay for the
transportation.
•
Each
division/department is allocated a budget for July 1 – June 30. The
funding for the event was paid for through the Communications Division’s
budget.
*(The total cost of the event was $165,455.77 this
included rental of the facility, production costs, transportation, interpreters
for hearing impaired employees, speaker, signage, t-shirts, and bottled water.)
•
Was allocating money for the Infinite Energy Center the best
use of funds?
•
An Opening
Schools Convocation has not been held in the district for 10 years. The event
was designed as a professional development experience in which all staff
(new and experienced, north and south, east and west) had the opportunity to
engage with each other.
The event was a direct response to an expressed desire to
have us come together – to create a culture of unity and togetherness as One
Team, One Voice, One DeKalb. It was also an opportunity for all staff to
hear first-hand the depth and breadth of our accomplishments and to hear
directly from the superintendent regarding the charge: the next steps we
will be taking toward the fulfillment of our vision and mission as a district
focused on deep teach and learning.
It was also a wonderful opportunity to see our talented
students perform on stage.
Q. The high jump mat is completely unsafe and
unusable. This is a major safety concern for our kids.
A. The Athletics Department provides equipment for the
regional stadiums. Teams are able to visit those locations for practice at any
time.
Q.
There is no Booster Club for the Track Team and the majority of the kids
who participate in track can barely afford the minimal dues the coach’s collect
to cover the basic expenses of meets, coach’s salary and uniforms.
•
The coach’s
salary comes from the district allocated budget. Uniforms are provided by the
district as well on a three year rotational cycle. Collected fees
should not be used for these purposes.
Q. How
can we best reach our student sub-groups? For example, DHS has a significant
population of Latin American students and there is a language barrier.
A. The English
Learner Department works closely with local school staff to provide training to
meet the needs of all speakers of languages other than English. Training
is provided for teachers and administrators. Parents are also supported through
the Title III parent centers.
Q. Can
we have a paid liaison who is fluent in Spanish to help communicate with these
students and parents?
A. General Budget considerations are being
made for the increase of support for students and parents that speak a primary
home language other than English.
•
What
specific, incremental security measures is Dr. Green intending to put in place
to heighten school security, if any?
•
Increases are being made in the
general budget to increase the number of school resource officers across
the district.
A pilot for the installation of
metal detectors will be launched. We are also working to
enhance security cameras in schools and have added vestibules to newer
construction projects. The K-9 unit (2 trained in narcotics and
explosives detection) have been added to the Public Safety unit.
Q. Those that are
controlled by the DeKalb County Schools vs. the State or Federal
Government?
A. The DeKalb County School Police work closely with other
local jurisdictions to ensure the safety of students and staff on a daily
basis.
Q. Capacity and student overpopulation issues
at Dunwoody High School.
•
The Board
approved $17.7 million under E-SPLOST V to construct a 26-classroom addition at
Dunwoody HS to address this issue.
The new addition is slated to be completed by fall 2022. In
the interim, the Operations Division will be installing additional quad units
(4 classrooms per unit) with restrooms to temporarily address overcrowding at
the school.
Q. One third of our students are on
free/reduced lunch. Our cafeteria lines are too long and some students are not
able/willing to wait in line to eat. For some of the kids, this is their best
meal of the day.
How can you help
us ensure that our kids have access to lunch and do not have to go hungry
throughout the school day? As a bonus, it would be nice if the quality of the
food was higher.
•
The School Nutrition Coordinator,
Maureen Pickett and Connie Walker, Interim Executive Director of School
Nutrition, met with the student council lead, Ebony Greene and student members
at Dunwoody HS during the fall 2017. A survey and a taste test was conducted
with the student council to identify student preferences and menu selections.
We
are in the process of obtaining equipment to add a Grab and Go serving line in
the cafeteria.
The
next step to meet with DCSD technicians to determine the electrical voltage
needs in the cafeteria. This will increase the student participation and flow
the traffic during meal service. The target for completion is April, 2018.
Q. Please address the level of athletic support
that the school gets from the County, some specific examples below:
•
Took 8 weeks to get the Tennis court lights to come on in
time to be useful for home matches.
•
Can we get local control over those facilities to allow the
coaches to turn on and off as needed?
•
The Division of Operations will
assess the lighting concerns to determine if the automatic timers or photocell
sensors on the Tennis court lights need to be replaced or recalibrated. If so,
our Region 1 Facilities Manager will work with GA Power and our in-house
electricians to do so as soon as possible.
