Hinojosa withdraws teacher proposal

Cobb Superintendent Dr. Michael Hinojosa avoided what looked to be a losing battle Thursday night when he pulled his proposal for a partnership with Teach For America from the school board meeting agenda.

The school board spent little time on agenda items Thursday because nearly half of the hour-long night meeting was taken up by public comments about Teach For America and Imagine International Academy of Mableton.

“You win a few, you lose a few, and a few get rained out,” Hinojosa said, using a baseball analogy to explain why he took the Teach For America proposal off the school board agenda before Thursday night’s meeting.

At last week’s work session, Hinojosa recommended that the school board approve a partnership with the nonprofit organization and hire 50 teachers to work in south Cobb schools. Teach For America is a program that places recent college graduates, who did not study education, in urban schools and trains them to be educators.

The salaries of the teachers would be the same as their colleagues, but the school district would be responsible for paying $4,000 per teacher per year for two years, coming to a $400,000 contract. Hinojosa said that cost would have been paid for by private donations, but did not name possible donors.

“It’s going to come back. It won’t come back this fiscal year, but it will come back in the future,” he said. “A lot of people were concerned with the timing of it, and I didn’t want to bull rush something and try to push it through.”

Hinojosa said he mostly heard opposition to the proposal from school board members.

Vice chair David Morgan said he was disappointed that Hinojosa removed it from the agenda.

“I think that (Teach For America is) in the best interest of children,” he said. “If you just look at the people who gave public comments tonight, the people who were against it were pretty much gatekeepers, stars of the status quo, but we also heard from real parents who actually live in the area and actually have kids in the schools, and they were supportive.”

Even though Board Chairman Scott Sweeney announced that the Teach for America agenda item had been pulled before the public comment portion of the meeting, six people spoke on the matter.

Leo Smith, James Young, Kiddada Grey and Valerie Testman spoke in favor of the program.

Smith, who said he emailed board members voicing his support for Teach For America, lives in Smyrna but sends his children to a school in Atlanta.

“Teach For America is … effective at working with disadvantaged children who need that kind of energy, enthusiasm and undivided attention,” he said. “They deserve it, and they should not be sacrificed for any other people. Schools are about protecting students, not protecting teachers. … I won’t stop fighting for them, whether my kids are in those schools or not, or whether they end up there. Those are my neighbors, those are my friends, those are the people that I love and I will fight for them until you change the school system.”

Young said Lynnda Eagle was right to be concerned about teacher morale, but added that there is more to a school district than teachers.

“The morale of the community and of the schools and our children should be paramount over the morale of the teachers in the end,” he said.

Grey said Teach for America might not “fit the image” for Cobb County, but that it increase test scores in south Cobb.

“Shame on us for not realizing that we have kids who are 2½ years behind, and this is not something that started yesterday,” she said. “We need to understand that my babies are your babies, and that when you’re in office, my babies should be your babies. Every child in Cobb County is mine, and I want them all to achieve.”

Testman said the program would help close the achievement gap, which was the No. 1 priority of the school district outlined by Hinojosa and the school board in August.

“Closing the gap can’t be taken lightly,” she said. “It’s a movement and it’s a mission. You have to have a passion to want to close this achievement gap. … I’m unaware of any other programs or policies that have been presented to this board thus far, so tonight I stand before you asking you to support Teach For America and our post. A minimum 50 teachers is not a lot to ask.”

The only speakers who came out against the proposal were members of educator groups: Connie Jackson with the Cobb County Association of Educators and John Adams with Educators First.

“I am very excited that you pulled the Teach For America item,” Jackson said. “As a representative of the educators here in Cobb and more importantly as a south Cobb teacher myself, Teach For America is not the answer. It will not fix the things that we need to fix in the south Cobb area. There are numerous other programs that we could look at and things that we could do to make a difference in that area without bringing in untrained, uncertified and uneducated people to serve. We need, experienced educators who are certified, dedicated, enthusiastic and love what they do and that’s the difference that we can make in that area.”

Adams said the district needed to find something that would be good for both teachers and students.

“I came to you tonight initially to urge you to vote ‘no’ for Teach For America and I still feel that way but I’d be remised if I didn’t genuinely applaud Mr. Morgan for at least considering a different solution and his passion for school improvement. … Educators First is against Teach For America. We do view that as outsourcing teachers, and we’re concerned that in the time that we could possibly be laying off 350 teachers in Cobb County, we’re concerned about 50 teachers that will be replaced with less experienced, less-qualified teachers who cost more money.”

In other comments, three people from Imagine Mableton, backed by nearly 50 people in the audience, asked the school board to reconsider its decision made last fall to close the Mableton charter school in May.

On Sept. 29, the school board voted 4-3, with Kathleen Angelucci, Tim Stultz and David Banks dissenting, to not renew the charter school’s petition to stay open for at least two more years.

Dr. Bobby Allen, James Owmby and the Rev. Thaddeus Jones asked for a revote in light of recent reports that Morgan’s wife, Rep. Alisha Thomas Morgan (D-Austell), is seeking to open STEM Inventors Academy in south Cobb.

Allen, vice chair of the Imagine Mableton’s governing board and a teacher in the Atlanta Public Schools, reminded the school board that the charter school was the only school in its area that passed AYP for both its elementary and middle schools.

“I respectfully request that the board recall the previous vote, redress the harm done to Imagine Mableton by granting our school a one-year extension of this charter and allow the school the opportunity to petition for full charter renewal in the spring of 2013,” Allen said.

Owmby, who serves as the school’s interim principal, referred to the board’s vote in September as a “death penalty” and asked the school board to “recall the vote,” “redress” and “renew” their school.

“We seek a chance to go on, do a year of what we’ve done, produce those kinds of numbers, produce 100 percent scores on the writing tests and teach our children how to persevere like the teachers (back there) have done,” he said, referring to the teachers from the school in attendance.

In an interview last week, Owmby said he thought that Morgan should have recused himself from the vote in September but had no intention of filing an appeal for a re-vote on the renewal petition or a complaint with the ethics commission.

Jones, who also serves on the governing board, said he has children that attend Imagine Mableton and he too was asking the board to reconsider their vote.

“Extend our current charter for one year to allow us to address the things that you’ve said we need to address. We have done that at the governing board level and at every level of the school. … We ask that you would, in light of the evidence that has come to pass with a conflict of interest, we ask that you give us a redress, fairness. We just want you to be fair about Imagine Mableton.”

In other business, the board:

• Voted 6-1, with Alison Bartlett dissenting, to pay $20,444 in FY2013 and $6,444 for subsequent years to fund Pinnacle Solution software for Kennesaw and Smyrna charter schools. The program, which allows parents and guardians to check their child’s grades and progress online, was proposed by Morgan and will be hosted by Global Scholar. Funds will come from the district’s general fund and technical support for the program will be provided within the charter schools.
• Tabled a resolution to support the Georgia School Board Association’s vision statement, 5-2, with Angelucci and Stultz dissenting. The “Vision for Georgia“ framework provides a list of priorities to improve educational opportunities for students and has been approved by 75 percent of all school boards across the state, Bartlett said.
• Approved a $1.16 million contract with Atlantic South Construction Inc. of Marietta to make renovations at Lindley 6th Grade Academy with funds from SPLOST III. The contract came in 17 percent under budget. Improvements will be made to the school’s home economics room, kitchen, locker rooms, staff restrooms, sprinklers and fire alarm.
• Approved a $2.27 million contract to Swofford Construction of Austell to renovate Hightower Trail Middle School with funds from SPLOST III and FY10 Capital Outlay. The contract came in 32 percent under budget. Improvements will be made to the school’s main office, teacher planning/classroom, auditorium seating, HVAC and electrical.
• Approved a $206,069.65 performance contract with the Success for All Students project for Jan. 31 and June 30, funded by the $8.56 million U.S. Department of Education’s Safe Schools and Healthy Students grant awarded to the district in 2009. The grant helps provide funds for school-based, mental-health services for 20 elementary, nine middle and five high schools.

(Reprinted from the MDJ, January 27, 2012. Written by Lindsay Field.)