Redistricting Meeting with Glynn County Education Superintendent Dr. Scott Spence at St Simons Elementary School | October 23, 2024 5:30pm

4:08PM Oct 25, 2024

Speakers:

Scott Spence

Sarah Paynter, SSE School Council

Derek Jordan, SSE Parent Council

Concerned Parent

Keywords:

redistricting plan

community feedback

school rezoning

parental involvement

economic impact

school capacity

transportation concerns

community schools

Title One funding

property values

tax revenue

school demographics

committee selection

public meetings

stakeholder survey

Families in our community the opportunity to hear first hand information about the plan, so that everyone can form an educated opinion of their own. On September 16, we reached out to Doctor Spence, and he agreed to come and present to us as well as answer some questions that meeting was originally scheduled for October 2, but first came home and had other plans, as noted on the agenda. Tonight's informational meeting will consist of a PowerPoint presentation by Dr Spence, followed by a Q and A session, which will be facilitated by Derek Jordan. He serves alongside me as a parent rep on the school council. The questions that will be asked by Mr. Jordan and the Q and A were all pre submitted to the school council by parents, teachers and other intimate community members. The parent reps on school council went through the submitted questions. We organized and consolidated that to aid in the flow tonight's meeting. So while you may not hear your question word for word, we believe the subject matter has been covered. You should all have a print out and play the questions in front of you to the extent you do have a question that's not addressed tonight, we would encourage you to write it down so that it can be later submitted as directed by Dr Spence, or raised at a future input meeting before I turn it over to Dr Spence, I did want to quickly provide two definitions for terms that you'll hear a lot throughout the questions, in case someone's not familiar. The first term is so low, which is the proportion of downtown Brunswick south of lobster street that's currently districted to Saint Simons Elementary in the court point. And the second term is ccrpi, which refers to the college and career ready performance index reports, which are scores that are issued by the Georgia Department of Education that show how schools are performing on important academic matters. These reports can be used to compare schools in different categories. Thanks again for coming and listening and turn it over now to Dr Finn,

I can't sit still. So I'm a mover. I'm sorry, a fall. Just pick me up.

I have with me tonight. Four board members will be standing up, four Board of Education members. I know, hey, you wanted to stand up to say everyone, thank you, our assistant superintendent, pre K through the five, and Mister Eric Benson, who is our assistant superintendent. And so everyone wants to know who's on the the committee. And it's really not a secret. I told Scott rice, and he can tell everyone, but one of the committee members is here. He's a representative from Saint Simons. I Santa Claus himself, Mister Andy Jones. He's a guy to play Santa Claus on the fire truck. Um, so go ahead and get started, and I will see if I can see this. So understand that nothing is fine. What I wanted to do is I wanted to have a small group of eight folks, and I wanted to make some basic decisions and then bring it to the public so we can hear the concerns of the public, and that's what we're doing here tonight. This is like my third or fourth kind of small meeting. This is much bigger than the others, and that's fine. We're not trying to hide anything. We're trying to be transparent and hear your concerns, and then I will take those concerns back to the committee, and we'll talk about it more, and then we'll listen some more, and then we'll bring them to the board for a vote. This is not something that we're just trying to push through. We're trying to be open and transparent here and listen to your concerns and answer your questions. So as I said, the the final decision will be made with input from you guys, and then through the committee, and then I will take the recommendation to the board. The changes will not take place until at the year, it is the fall of 2027 or at the latest, when the new school was built. And then all students who are in the zone that are out of school will be able to finish that great man in that school. And so that, that's what we're saying at this point. So we have a rezoning Task Force. And I was, I was I was asked to pick a committee. And so what I tried to do is I've tried to pick a committee that was very diverse and from different parts of the county. I'll tell you who they are. In fact, Andy. So we have Andy Jones, and we have Joe Willie Susan, and we have Scott Rachman, and we have the lady named continue, and we have Bobby Henderson, and we have Kenny roll, and we have John Williams, and we have a few credits, and that will provide new words. That is the verses I will find, and also it covers all of our county, and it covers different professions. We have a retired teacher. That was one of the questions against you have a retired teacher. And so all of these people have have a stake in our community and in our school system, and they all. Either have children in the school system or had children in the school system, and for the movement to run high school four going to go ahead. So I wanted to make sure we have a good representation. So in our first meeting, we formed the committee back in December of last year. Our first meeting was on February the fifth. Again, this was not a secret, because I asked God, right and right there today, can I say this? And I said, you know how he is and and I said, say, whatever you want. This is not what I'm trying to hide anything. Talk to folks and get it, see how they feel. Those are the meetings that they had. And it was just the committee members. We had some of the cabinet there, and we had some Board of Education members in attendance, also so that they can hear what we're talking about and hear some of the concerns that they just were bringing to me from community members. So on August the 19th, after we had met all those times, we had a meeting with principals and and we asked principals to bring a teacher and the parent representatives. And at that meeting, we talked about the plan, and we said to the principals, share this with your school counselor, share this with your PTA, and get it out to your stakeholders and your school so that they can ask questions. And if they have questions that you can't answer, then they can email me or call me, or you can set up a meeting like this, and we can meet so we can talk about it. These are the meetings that I've had, September the 17th. You can see who I met with. This is today. Some of those meetings have been rescheduled because of the storms that we have, and so those are the main major meetings. I have answered several emails, I've taken several phone calls, I've spoken to people in person, and I will continue to do that until this is all over. If you send me an email, I'm going to answer it. I don't leave my office until all of my emails are answered. And this, and that's what's going to happen. Go back one time. I'm sorry. So in the end, when you have one big public meeting for all folks that will divorce their opinion. And I'll have the committee there, and we'll have the board there, and then you can, you can voice your opinion if nothing has changed and you're not happy, or if we've changed and you're not happy with the changes. But we will present this again, present the zones, and then folks can voice their opinion about it at that meeting. And then at the board meeting, you will have an opportunity. We have, we have a public, public communication, but they can speak at at every board meeting. We have that before every board meeting, so folks can speak at board meeting before they actually go to one. Alright, so because you guys did the little paper that was like the Walkman by, where I wanted to follow along with that, because I kind of like it. And so the very first thing is we have land in the northern part of Glen county to build school. Originally, we're going to build a middle school and a high school, but we have enough land to do that, but we don't need a middle school right now. And so we're going to build not High School in elementary school and middle school. So we're going to build an elementary school. The reason we're doing that, if you've never, if you haven't ridden in a car out there and saw all the properties that are being built, all of the apartment complexes that are coming the community is moving that way. We know that. We can see that when they brought Bucha in, in more Robus, when they built the buckies, there was nothing there. And that place is booming right now, and that's what we expect to see. If that doesn't happen, then this plan won't take place, because there's no reason for us to move in that direction, but we are planning to build another so this would force us to rezone, especially those schools on the mainland that will be impacted. And so because we have, we're going to move. We're going to replace Glendale out in that area. So we would have to rezone those kids, and then we would have to rezone gold medals, Alton and so forth and so on. We decided that we would look at all of the elementary schools, because we haven't rezoned our elementary schools in quite some time. Many school systems rezone often every four or five years. It's been much longer than that for our elementary schools and our middle schools and high schools, and so we're just looking at the entire picture.

Go ahead, I tell you. I come back, I miss something. You can see the wise.

We know that there are changes in school age population in South and valley. We also know there are changes in school age population in the northern part of the county right now. Outtown Elementary School is the only school that's really close to being overcrowded, and if we are not careful that school isn't going to be way overcrowded, and so we have to do something in that direction. So here's here's the thing that seems to be the biggest concern. So we met and we talked, and our committee. As a whole, unanimously felt that we wanted to see our elementary school students go to school closer to home. We felt that it was important for those students and their parents to be able to get to the school. And I'll talk more on that in a minute, but that was the main thing we started off with, and it has stuck the entire time. It was not something that was five to three or four to four. It was unanimous. Everyone felt that way. So we decided to follow a whole plan. We would have the initial meetings. We would meet with the principals and the PGS and the teachers, and we would meet concerned groups of citizens like this, and then we would hold one large group meeting for everyone to come, and then we would take it to the board of education, not the next day. We would talk again, and then take what we were deciding. We also decided that we would keep both Island schools open as elementary schools. I'll talk more about that during the question and answer session. Um, even though the population would only call for one school. They're currently, I believe, 615, students that are in elementary school, pre K through five that go to public schools on Saint Simons Island, that would fill one of these two schools up, either Saint Simons elementary or Bucha point. However, we took into account the traffic. Having one school, we took into traffic the account, but we just spent nearly $50 million on this school and 10, $15 million on overboard, which would be a waste of taxpayer money. We can be very flexible in our outer zones with these two schools, because there are a lot of folks that want to come to these two schools, and that's something you guys even understand there are a lot of people that want to come to saint Simon violence. We also took into account, started thinking about possibly having CI or all Saint Simons employees be able to bring their kids to the school and and I'll talk more about that too. But that was something we thought talk about. And then there are about maybe 180 private students who attend private school. We're in pre K through 500 net edge. What if they decided they're coming back to the public school? We would, we would have to have two schools. So we did also start with discussions about making the gold miles Career Academy a standing old school. And that could ease some of the burden over our high schools, but it would also allow those students who wanted to spend their entire day at the Career Academy that option. That is something that we're looking into, because there are so many diploma options that we're starting to see come down in the States, and we're starting to see more kids go after those diploma options. We then talk about girls millet and how faces is housed at girls Malet. Faces is our overall pre K program for the system. We still have pre K programs in many of our elementary schools. Faces is the larger and so we talked about, if we did move Glendale out, or have a new school, that the Glendale school could be faces. And I don't know if you guys think thought about this, but when you think about the center of what our community is, it's not downtown anymore. It's probably about how time Elementary is. If you look at the center of where the populace of our community is, because our community has slowly moved north over the 80s, we we talked about, let me see, we talked about the 521, plan so that we can have a truth feeding system where five elementary schools feed into exactly two middle schools and into exactly one high school. That's never been done again. Now, it just hasn't and I don't know why needwood, about 15% of these students go to new cafe. The rest go to Roanoke High School at Risley. You got the same thing, little Academy in Rosa none of our none of our nutrients, feed straight into one high school. And that's what we want to try to do is to have five elementary schools feed directly into two middle schools that feed directly into one high school. And you can see the reasons now, the question was asked about other options that we consider. And also, I think you mentioned, do you have any meeting notes? We don't really keep meeting notes, but I have all of the presentations that

I gave. And here's

everything we talk about. I just went back in here and looked at every possible scenario, and I'll just touch on it. You can see, keeping them as they are, and just simply, just students who are go to window right now. Just bust them out to the new school. We'll talk about that. Continue doing the same thing here, and just reasonable tools that that has been discussed.

We talk about sending the kids in the mainland 262 March. We talk about keeping the schools open. Um. And allow parents who worked on Saint Simons Island and work, maybe in Seattle, to go to school.

We talked about creating an 11th Elementary School. I don't know if you guys know where the old reason middle school used to be. That's kind of our alternative programs on Albany Street. We talked about creating an 11 elementary school. There was some discussion about closing either op or St Thomas. And then last month, there was some discussions about being transparent. Okay, in fact, the last meeting we had that was the only person that said they didn't like to claim it for presenting, because that person wanted to see one of those schools closed. So I'll just say that that

was the only decision, right.

There's been discussion about making overcourt Point Middle School. There's been some discussion about that and having Saint Simons elementary house all the elementary school and overcook point of being in middle school, and there's been discussion about having pre K students through second grade at one school and grades three, four and five at the other school, because of traffic issues, if you got a kid in those schools, that would be tough. And so thank you. Miss Samson bringing that up, and I didn't I never lived a lot they live in those saint Simon first year teaching. So I do understand the traffic, but I don't really understand the traffic. So here are the concerns that

I've heard and

and this, and I'm just going to add to this list after listen to you and after the video, hang around. Someone has another question just for me, because I know folks are going to move along. I don't mind hanging around and answering questions face to face. So the Glendale folks didn't double the new school would be named Glendale because it wasn't in Glendale. That's the easiest one. We had to fix things. So that was easy. Um, the people downtown and so good. They're worried. They're worried about they want to be known. They want their kids to come to saint Simon. Okay, they're worried about the proper values. I never thought about that. They are worried about the property values, and they want a quality education, and they feel that their education is higher quality on saint Simon, that's what I'm hearing. I've heard from the triad Association. I'll be meeting with them next week. Those are the folks out of office at 29 they're concerned about local crowding out there because of new apartment complexes and some of the new housing developments that they're concerned about that. And then the new guys, those are the issues that I've heard from you guys. And so that's where we're at right now. So if there are other questions I know come I'll come to you soon. I'll talk to you. I'll answer emails. I like emails because I can respond. I do bring concerns to the rezoning committee. We review what we talk about, and I bring additional concerns to them. I also speak to board members about the things that's going on too. As I said, we will have one large meeting where folks can call, make 823, out, and then we'll make a final decision and bring it to the Board of Education for a vote. And then once they vote, we will move to the middle of night service, and that's where we're at. So I did have questions, but they were saying he's going to answer your questions, and so we're going to do the moderator, but afterwards, if you do have a question, I'll kind of hang around and feel free to call me and ask me questions, and

I want to stand up with you, because I don't like to just sit I like to move along with you. So that'd be a little weird if I was just sitting there. Hey everybody, my name is Derek. I'm also a, as Sarah mentioned, a parent rep on the school council here at six un Thanks, Dr Spencer for the presentation. And really my job is, I see it is just to kind of be the official question. Asker, you guys put these questions in. I'm just here to read them out loud. So Dr Spence Can, can? Can give some answers here. And just as just one other thing before we get going, when I first met Doctor Spence here this evening, I said, Hello. He said, This is a lot of questions. This is about two hours worth. So just to give you guys a heads up, we got started pretty good on time here, and we might be here till 730 or something, if people have to go Doctor spectrum says you like email What's your email address?

My email address is Scott dot spins at Glen. Dot, K, 12, dot, G, a.us, so Scott dot spins just like emailing your child's teaching. I messed it up. Thank

you. Can I say something

real fast? When I chose the committee, I took a lot of time. I didn't just choose people that I know. I didn't choose my friends. I chose some people that I really don't like because I wanted to hear their. Opinion, I wanted to do what they had to say, because if I only choose my friends, they're going to just follow along with me. These people have spent hours sitting and talking about zoning, so please don't make them the targets. We should respect their time and thank them for their service, because a lot of them, they don't need to do this, and some of them are starting to get some pretty heated emails, and it's just, I don't think it's difficult email me to be emails I can take it.

Gotcha, I know there are some questions about the committee, and we'll get to this in just a minute, but let's start off at the top of maybe you guys have this degree in law, is the committee planning to publish the proposed plan? The rationale behind it, and answers to frequently asked questions publicly. And then will public forums or town halls be scheduled in different areas of county so that stakeholders can ask questions and provide feedback to the committee? If so, how soon will that be happening, and where should people look to find that information? Okay,

so I think we've already published enough Thanksgiving, or I think we've published and so that's okay, and I don't have any problem hiding, because I saw that new the other day, and I gave you what I was going to talk about. So someone asked me for it. I don't have a problem, but understand this thing changes every time we meet. There's, there's small changes. So if I publish something that was two or three weeks ago, it might not be the same now. So it's kind of, we're kind of working and building it as we go. And so when, when I say, Take, publish, we're not to that point yet. So yes, when we meet, it will be published if we publicize and and there will be no doubt what we're going to take the board in terms of the timeline. Did you ask about time? Yeah, there

was a question about that. How soon will some of this be out of here?

I would like to take the plan to the board in December or January

of this year, of this year,

I would like to make a final committee decision. I'd like to have the big meeting sometime in November, unless there are more meetings like this that I need to go to. But if the if those meetings kind of squirm your way, I'd like to have the big meeting where folks can talk and then we make a decision, take it to the board. But I would like to take that to the board sometime in December, January. I don't have a problem pushing it back right now. That's the

time that is surprising to me. I'll kind of put that to it all. I imagine some people are like, wow, let's

do it. Remember now we started this in February. We started meeting in February, and then we come up with something, and then someone goes, there's a question later on about, have you thought about having more members? Have you ever tried to make a decision with 50 people? It's almost impossible. Eight people is hard enough, and so I tried, we tried to make a decision that we can move around, change and then take to the poor. Because the more people that evolve, the harder it is to come to a consensus. There's a few questions on here

with the word stakeholders, and that's kind of a broad term. I guess that could mean residents, teachers, students, citizens, all sorts, administrators. Was a survey of stakeholders conducted prior to the formulation of this plan, and if so, who was surveyed and what were the results? So we

did not, and we probably will not do the survey, because I don't think that's the best way to handle I think the best way to handle a situation like this is to talk one on one in a group like this. And have you have the opportunity to ask questions, because if we do a survey, we find that we get about 26 27% of people who respond. And those 2627 people respond probably to people who don't have and so I want to hear from everyone. This is the best way, I think. And so no, the problem will not

answer, and some people might be yelling, alright, well, I've got questions I want to ask. And I'm thinking right now, I want to ask this so there's some room for you to write today that your questions down and you get email and waiter with those if a survey was not conducted, then where is the idea of solo parents not wanting their children to be bus to Saint Simons Island come from? Is that the majority opinion from those currently impacted?

So here's something I've never thought about, and I don't know that many of you in this room thought about one of our committee members was buds from solo the same time as I and she started talking about what it felt like when she got here and saw people. And then she said, My mom put guns and super double price, but we wanted her to, and they said they would get a plus. Let's think about this in this second. You live in the province, you're going to come over and get a bus, and your mom here going to get on that bus, and you're going to drive over the Saint Thomas Island, you going to get off that bus. You're going to see all these nice cars, all these people, these nice clothes, and you and your mom are getting off of a bus. Just

think about that. I

want you to respond. I just want you to think about that, because that's what she said, and that that means something to me, and that meant something to everybody in that committee when she said, so yes, that's where the idea, and I know it's not everyone, but that's what we heard that day. It

was just for a committee. Member, yes, okay. Is there a plan to conduct a survey of stakeholders on the proposed plan before finalizing it and submitting it to the Board of Education for for approval? So you just said you don't have that? No plan.

I don't think that's the best way, because I don't think we're going to hear from the people, and I think it's the best way to move this place we hear from it,

were any other communities with similar aspects, kind of study for this, like a case study? What were the results? If so, so in terms

of a case study? Note, however, we did study howerson County. We talked to Houston County. The person who you think his name's David carpenter? He used to be the superintendent there, and he told me one time that they rezoned every four or five years just to make sure they kept up at the times. We haven't done that here, and that's why this is going to be so difficult, because we haven't done it in so long. And he said he kind of told laid out process, and we talked a little bit, but I called him back and said, Well, here's what I've done, here's what I'm doing. He said, Man, that's way more than we did. He said, We don't need the vote. We just put it out there and we, you know, take some comments and do what we're going to do. And I said, I can't do that, David. I have to live here when I retire. That's I told the Lord that when I got the job, I don't have the option to do something and walk away, because I'm going to live here. You guys are going to see me in the grocery store and and I can't, I can't look even the eye. I think that I have to do it right now.

We understand that the Board of Education will ultimately have to vote to approve the proposed plan. Hey, what is the anticipated date for that vote? And how will the public be notified of the day to day. So I'm

looking at December, January. We have to notify, by law, we have to notify the public. If we're having a Board of Education meeting, we have to do that. And it will be but this will be bigger, because this one will put out on our social media. This one will publicize, I'm sure the newspapers will pick it up. And this is we will know. We'll we'll put it on social media, well as a newspaper, and we'll do it by our the way, we have to do a meeting, okay? And will there be a period of public comment prior

to that vote? We've

already mentioned public comment, actually, because it's like three minutes, five minutes, and then we do 30 minutes, I would imagine, you know, we would, we would allow more than 30 minutes when we have this meeting, because there will be more

than six people that want to

talk. So is this the November meeting that you're kind of

talking probably December. Is probably December, January.

But with the big meeting where everybody there

will be a meeting in a high school gym or high school auditor, we'll have, we'll have a speaker up there, folks can just come up and say what they they accepted, okay? And at the board meeting right before the board votes. So here's what happens with the board meetings. When the work session the Thursday prior to the board meeting, at the work session, there's really no public input. We present what's going to happen. We present this is what we're going to be voting on the next meeting. So the plan will be presented. And then on Tuesday, the board votes, and so that gives the board Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, to listen to the community if there are issues. And then after on the day of the board meeting, the public can speak and tell you know how they feel about

you made a plea, you know, a few minutes ago, not to harass the committee or give them too much heat if stakeholders have concerns about the plan. What's the preferred method to voice those to the committee or the Board of Education?

I think there's several ways. I think if you know one of the committee members, certainly talk to them, because there's been a lot of talk between community committee members and community members. So certainly feel free to talk, especially if you know one of them, you certainly can email me. I just gave my email address. If you want to come meet with me, we will talk. I will respond. I will respond. Probably a lot has a new thing, and then if you maybe like that. So you can email your board members. All of you have a board member who represents you, you can certainly email them if you have questions too, but no, they're probably going to email me and I'm going to tell them the answer negatives, yes. Go ahead, straight to me. That's what y'all want me to say, right? Okay, are the board member email addresses

online for us?

Yes, if you go on to the school system website and go to board of education, you will see the board members email addresses.

Thank you. So we'll move on

to the second topic in here, which does come to the committee. And Andy, appreciate you being here. Thanks. Who chose the committee members and what was the criteria I chose?

I was looking for someone who cared about this committee, all eight of them. I was looking for folks who have a stake in this committee and folks who have a stake and care about our school system. And so that's why they were chosen. And yes, I did choose them. I did think about having each board member choose someone. You know, we've done that before. When we have a committee, we didn't do that, and we just went this way. And again, I want to reiterate i. I wouldn't call myself friends, but any I don't even I know where one board member lives, and I've never been in that person's house, so our committee members so, I mean, I don't even know where any of it is. I don't even know him for a long time, but it's not like the best buddies.

So did any of the committee members live in the solo community?

Now there are two that used to live in the solo committee. One lives very close to the solo committee, but there are none on there, and and, and there's also none that live in fairway oaks. There's also none to live in various orders. There's also none. I mean, it would be hard for me to pick somebody from every single community in our like I try to get a wide range of folks.

So you mentioned they have a stake in the community and investment in the community. They care about it other than any graduates of one County School System. What relevant qualifications do the committee members possess? Anyone have degrees or backgrounds in the education system, serve on any school boards or have any relevant business qualifications?

I think if many of them ran for the school board, they could probably win. I also wouldn't have the problem hiring any of them as a teacher if they had those qualifications. I think most of them have college degrees, certainly not teacher degrees. There is one. Keith Redding is a retired educator, and he's been in one county for a long time, so I feel confident in their qualifications to make decisions about time,

would you consider expanding the size of the committee and adding additional members to get a broader perspective? I think I make a great answer. Okay, you know,

so when you get in a room with more than 789 people, when you're trying to come to a consensus and make a decision, the more people that are involved, it gets more difficult. And so I try to keep it relatively small, but these folks have put many hours in, and I think it would be kind of a slap in their face if I said, Oh, we're giving input. I'm going to take this input back to you guys, to them, and I'm going to come forward so they're going to hear the input from you. And again, I'm not trying to hide anything. I don't have anything at stake in this. I'm trying to do what's right, what we think is right for the community, and we want to hear what you guys are saying.

One of the primary goals the committee is attempting to achieve with the read yesterday,

I think first of all, we definitely want to have elementary students attend schools closest to where they're I think it's important for parents to be able to be involved in their child's education, to be able to get to the school. And I think in some instances, that's not something we are having happen. We do want to see theater schools. We do want to see a definite line to when you get to middle school, this is where you go when you get to high school, this is where you go, because you went to these schools. And that's, that's the building we're achieved. But we also want to listen to the community. We want to hear what they have to say about our claims.

So in situations like this, yes, was an independent third party consultant engaged to determine forward looking population trends and demographics for the county and projections related to the current proposed plan. If so, will that report be made available to the public and when it was not right out.

So it's a huge report, first of all, and it really concentrates on the student population, not so much, the population of the county. It looks at school age population, and yes, it is an independent consultant. It's called group management, and they manage our response and so as a service to us. They also give us a population trend, and they've been dead on for many years. In fact, I heard mister Mann say one time they were like the one student off. That's pretty close. They look at live birth rates, they look at building permits, they look at the, you know, how many kids are moving from our school system to private school, or how many are coming back out. And so yes, we did, and those are the folks that did.

So you talked earlier about just, even just going for a drive up to the north part of the county, and just sort of anecdotally, people can look to see that that's where it's growing. But this good survey suggested that people are going to their

team. You got the goon survey. You got the eye test. You also got a situation where we got a monkeys coming out there, and we know that brings folks, there's no

are any minutes or videos of committee meetings available for public review, or any studies, reports, data, etcetera, that the committee used in creating the proposed plan available for public review. If not, why not?

Everything that we've talked about is about, everything that I know we talked about looking back and we looked at the PowerPoint presentations, and everything that was brought up is on there. And so our I keep the PowerPoints from the previous ones. I basically add to it and say, Okay, here's what we talked about last time. Here's what we decided. It. What are we going to do now and then at the end, I even say this is what we decided tonight, and I send it back out to them. So again, not trying to hide anything, that is what we're talking about. We have spent a lot of time talking about these items that are on here

in terms of data. I can

I can share data. I can share the Google court stuff with you, if you want me to I mean, that is 300 pages, maybe. So it's a lot.

It's a good point to see that they can just keep going in.

If somebody emails me, I'll send it to you. I think I'll send it to you. Raise your hand. I mean, I'm getting too high. Anything. Trying to hide anything, but you can have fun reading it now.

Alright, so Topic number three, redistricting rationale, as you know, SSC was just being in 2024, National Blue Ribbon School. Congratulations. Child service models and affected school practices for state and district educators and other schools throughout the nation. Why, as a county, would we adopt a redistricting plan that removes primarily minority and economically disadvantaged students from a current Blue Ribbon School? I

I'm not sure that would have changed my mind. I'm not sure that was also a Blue River School at one point, every purpose and not now, and why? So I'm going to talk more about this, and I can, I can expand on this a little bit.

Congratulations, by the way. Thanks. I

was well, our goal is to try to make sure that parents can be involved in their children's education, and they can get to the school where their children are. That is our primary goal. Now, if that's not something that we believe in as a community, that's fine. We can we can backtrack, but that is our goal, to make sure our parents can get to the school where their children go. Ken Simone, yeah. Ken mosto, yeah. Ken Holman,

according to current CCR parent, 98% of borough all that's current student population is economically disadvantaged. Many sources, including the National Institute of Law, have noted that the stresses of poverty can impair the learning ability of young children and negatively impact their executive functioning abilities such as impulse and emotional control and attention. How will adding hundreds of additionally economic additional economically disadvantaged children who may struggle with these same issues to Burro that student population benefit

the existing students

there or those being added. So

first of all, we need to. We are providing extra support in birds, letting you do but we probably, if we do that, we don't need to crank up that extra support, adding administrators, adding counselors. And we have actually looked into, and we're talking about, right now, paying teachers and extra stipend who decide to work and stay in their schools and but that's what we're looking at, Will, demographics, drives, test scores. Please understand that as a superintendent telling standing up here, we can look at a superintendent to have a meeting and go, here's the percentage of kids that I have who are low socioeconomics, not race, not not color, not even where they live. It's it's the demographic of low socioeconomic that drives test scores. It's almost one to one. When I looked at our test scores here in green county, I looked at last year's scores, and just yesterday, maybe two days ago, I looked at this year's scores, because we just got it now. Point the only way thing about a correlation, so if you correlate two counts of data, point nine, six was the correlation between ccrpi score and low socio economic, meaning that was the highest, almost one on one, almost a perfectly straight line race, was much lower. Teacher experience was way way lower. Teachers with extra degrees was way lower. It's socio economics, and we're actually trying to change the social security now that's what we're trying to do, is get kids to come there that are different than what they have right now. Remember, David wants a little river school.

Do you know when, when that was 1980s

this diversified administration and staff in favor of this proposed plan? I

don't know about the staff. I know the administration is a little concerned about the numbers. But I don't know about the staff. We bring the extra support, say, but as far as the staff, I talked to, the President called her yesterday, and that's what she's concerned about,

is the support from the county for the 2023 24 school year, girls millet was at 87% capacity, with only 87 spaces available. The proposed plan would add more than 87 students to girls millet. What modifications would be required to accommodate these additional students?

Earl millet also held houses, faces, and we just talked about moving faces. How to clean the other dimension that's two weeks, that's about 200 students. So it's it will be more, more. It's plenty big to support the number of students. Understand this, girls is the third largest capacity school in our system. It's bigger than any other Middle School. The capacity of girls, looking at 16 students per room, is 1050 so it would be almost 300 under capacity if we use those first two links.

So it's got that space. What resources will the county

be provided? The health officer, it also assumes that everyone in that zone goes to girls 11, which is probably not going to happen. So you're also saying we're looking at the kids who are in that zone, and also that also assumes that every student that is in the Roseland zone would go to Rose 11, and we know that's probably not going to happen.

What resources will the county be providing to help rose 11 increase in these population numbers and to help a teacher turnover retention issues. Yeah, the

teacher retention is problem at both world Glendale. Here's what happens. We go, we get a teacher and a young teacher, Teacher of the Year. In fact, last year, 1111, and they, they saved three or four experience, and then they moved to another school. And so one of the things we're thinking about doing, and we talk about, I've talked about it before, is providing a stipend for teachers to stay at Murrow's plan and stay good year, good teachers, so that they won't be more apt to leave after three or four years.

Alright, this is a mouthful here. According to the ccrpi data currently available, st Simons Elementary is 58% white, 19% black and 16% Hispanic. Obelero point is 74% white, 14% black. Neighbors in Hispanic and Burroughs millet is 81% white, 12% Hispanic and 3% white. With the proposed plan, what will the resulting diversity percentages for these three schools be? Doesn't this plan effectively create racially segregated schools? Remember,

the proposed plan is taking students live in the southern part of government. It's taking those students and bringing girls, but so we're trying to make it different. That's what we're trying to do now. Will those it's coming? Probably not. There is also if, if you bring employees from CI and from other, Mercy is going to be there on saint Simon, because I think those of you who've been to Ci you see who works, and you see who works in some of the restaurants and some of the hotels and things, and I think that would be much easier for the to bring their kids to Saint Simons on their way to work,

regarding the rationale by bringing children to schools that are closer to home will increase parental involvement. Does the committee have support for this assumption? Is there evidence that current parental involvement at birth 11, which is already a community school, is high? Is parental involvement high at birth month? Absolutely

not. But we've gotta try to change that. The number one indicator of school success is the demographic of low socio high socio economics, the number one indicator for receiving students success is per volt and motivation by the student and the parent. We have to do something to change, and I hope you guys have some answers, but we have to do something at first we understand

that one argument that supported community schools over diverse schools. Is that black children at SSE, 19% of the school population here are not outperforming black children in Brazil, Reynolds standardized testing. Rather, they're performing the same which is validated by the ccrpi content mastery data according to ccrpi concepts read data, Hispanic students, 16% of SSC population are significantly outperforming expanded children at Boros millet, which is 12% of the population. There was this taken into consideration by the committee. Were any other subgroups compared special needs students, economically disadvantaged

students, etc. Now the reason they weren't is because when we were meeting with the committee, they asked about teacher experience, degree extra degrees. They wanted to know about Hispanic African American population, the low socioeconomic but I did look at the Hispanic correlation, and the percentage of Hispanics correlate with student with the ccrpis for the school at point six Street, which is much less in point nine, six, and so that really did have an impact when you look at the overall college

were, were any other measurable statistics for black or other minority children taken into consideration, graduation rates, attending grades, disciplinary referral rates, etc, but determine that these students are benefited by intended SS, they were

not basically just what I told you, only because those are the things the committee said. The first time I thought about looking at some of this stuff was when you guys, and I may look at it, it's not an easy text. I'll tell you when you start looking at all the

was any consideration given to the potential intangible benefits of attending same signs elementary including exposure to economic and ethnic diversity at a young age, unique opportunities such as ocean cloud walk to school, things like that.

We did, you know, someone mentioned that to me a month or two ago, and we did, we started looking at that. But the thing is, is we're not just going to leave saint Simon over for sitting on this. We're going to find a way to bring diversity here. And so those kids need some intangibles. Also,

moving on to population, one of the projected enrollment numbers for each of SSE, OBEs, bmes, or any zone students only under this plan, I

wrote that down. I gotta remember it's like so first of all, understand, right now, there are 90 last year, there were 95 students at us, on at exile, as I mentioned. So if you take 310, plus 95 pretty close to where it is now, however, there would be about four, 415, 410, that's not counting. If we say Saint Simons employees, that's not counting employees. Or if we decide to bring some of the kids, or if we bring those kids back, that's not counting that, oh, it's around 310 they have very few who go over four point, maybe like 15, and so they wouldn't be as popular. Uh, girls allowed to be sitting at about 750, maximum passage, 1050

the number of items on the transfers will fluctuate. So focusing only on the number of children that will actually be districted to SSE, it seems our recently remodeled, newly built school will be less than half full under the plan. Is that correct?

Yes, no.

Over what point would it be? Same time as I would not be less than half

Wilson Simons elementary offer smaller class sizes as a result, or will we only utilize half of the new building in the renovated building? And what was in was physical responsibility to the taxpayers of one county taken into consideration.

So the physical responsibility to the taxpayers of one county is always taken into consideration when you look at the two schools on the island, you have to understand, we're still talking about bringing other students into those two schools. We're just trying to find another way to do it, and that's where we're at right now. Again, it's not like I want to

go to the Lord too. So

you go to we're still talking about in terms of physical responsibility, utilizing the plan we have in this way is is the least expensive way to do it, because it would cost very little to renovate the two wings of girls left. Because right now we're pre K program. Well, we're going to bring pre K, kindergarten, first and second grade. Not a whole bunch of difference there. So that would be the most physically responsible way to do this.

Some of this you've already touched on, and we'll try to get through it, because Saint Simons islands projected only have enough elementary age students committee SSE and obese, on behalf of another group, for those men, how? You plan until these population shortfalls, see

how things comes out of the police. We may bring other kids up here, not sure. Again, we're talking about it right now.

Any ideas on how this plan would work logistically, with workers having different shifts that they don't come inside the school, drop off and pick up, times, what number of students you project this with at each school. So

I did talk to some folks at Seattle. They're thinking around 150 students that would and I think they use the insurance. These are the number of kids that are school based, that are on our insurance. So I did talk to them about that in terms of shifts. I did not think about that. That's something we're going to have to talk more about.

And we've heard about the proposal about the parents who work on st Simon, Simon to choose Amazon their daughter, their kids in SSE or OBEs, with relying on Amazon transfers from all over the county to fill more than half of the school, but seeking the two Island elementary will become the less of community based schools than they are today. Is the committee stated that statement,

community based schools, meaning folks on saint Simon Island want to send their kids to saint Simon. Now we're just trying to include folks who work over here. I want you to imagine just for a second that you live in Sterling, and you work on Seattle, and your kid goes to Sterling, and your kid gets sick, and you have to get to it. What if your kid was at same time or over four point? It's not easy. And so I'm trying to think about other things to help all of the students. And I understand that you guys care about certain things, and that's fine. That's what you're here to do, and that's why we want to hear what you have to say. But I have to think about all of our

keep that one what you have to say is more important. People can read these questions. What you guys have more than what I'm saying. Alright, so with enrollment at SSE likely to significantly decrease under the proposed plan, what's the plan for teachers that are here, how, when and by whom, will allow these decisions be made? So

I'm not sure enrollment is going to significantly decrease. It might be below, but every year, not just some years, not this this year, not next year, the last many years, we look at those numbers during the summer. We look at them what we're projecting in the spring, and we want the teachers to the schools based on the number of students. Teachers sign a contract to work for the Glen County school system, and that's what we have to look at, because we could have major shifts in student population at any time, we had over 100 kids show up at Jay bacon that we did not think would be there, and we had to make some shifts. And so that happens every year. And so the numbers at the school would dictate and teachers would run school.

What's the plan? What is the plan for Bridge Program students, many who ride the bus for far longer than other bus students will they continue to attend SFC, even though this is not their community school.

So Bridge Program is dictated by where the teachers are and where the students are and what that would change. That changes quite a bit. And so that would be dictated the same way as where the teachers are and where the students are.

You guys hear me. Alright, back there. Roll. We'll keep going. We understand the current plan allows grandfathering in existing SSE students. Is there a plan to accommodate the students who wish to take advantage of this grandfathering to remain at SSE for elementary school? Would we rely on the bus to get to school? So when we did that for those kids, we would

have to do it for every kid, and that would become nightmare, because we couldn't do it for every kid. And so we can't just do things for certain groups of kids that we're not doing for everyone.

So you have, you have talked, we've talked a lot about out of zoning. I was curious, how many requests for out of zoning. Does the county receive or approve annually? Currently, on average, for conflict students, don't they want to come to St Simons Island? You said there was a lot. There's 95

last year they were in st John there were 715 out of zone students in our schools that were attending a school.

Monitor. That's the exact number,

because there are many ways to get around loopholes. As you many, as many of you probably know that you can attend the school that you want to by not maybe giving us the correct address or maybe not giving us the right data. And so there are ways. And so we're not sure exactly how many there are, but we know that there were 715 last year that followed the process and were accepted.

So for those kids with any consideration given to the fact that requiring so go families to drive their children to SSC or OBS, will increase morning traffic here on SSI, I

think that there's any circle of parents that already drive their kids under. Was, I think maybe carpools from what I want to cover. So I don't know. Will

St Thomas elementary be able to provide access to aftercare for all children who will no longer be able to take the bus

off St Thomas and would be able to provide the same aftercare if other schools will be able to provide it for their Arizona students.

Alright, making progress here on alternatives. Now, it is understandable that the construction of a new elementary in a different part of Glenn county would necessitate some amount of redistricting to appropriately populate that school and surrounding schools, but it seems as though the current districting of Rose, Colette st Simons elementary and in point on the other side of the county would not need to be adjusted as a result of the new construction. Has the committee considered only redistricting as necessary around the new school and leaving the remainder of the elementary schools as is yes. Was there a compelling reason to adjust the lines between Saint Simons Elementary and over point on the island as part of this plan. So what we wanted

to try to do when we did adjust the lines, and we can pull that up if you want to, but we tried to make sure there was a clear north and

south, because our report was on the north and Saint Simons on the south, we

wanted to make sure that there was about even the amount of students on one side, so there's 310 on one and 315 on the other. And we wanted to look at transportation, where the was, what was the best way to create the least traffic problems, and that's what we

think. We did check.

Thank you. Does any consideration be given by the committee to the fact that a process already exists whereby families in the solo area who are districted to Saint Simons elementary but who would prefer to attend rose MILLETTE because of proximity or other reasons that they could elect to do so via the existing inter district, out of zone transfer, without eliminating the opportunity and bussing for those located in so global who want to attend SSE, to do so yes and discuss

however, you have to remember, when we do something for one area of the county, it has to be consistent with the entire county. You can't just cherry pick and say, we're going to do this here and not here. Can't do that. There are people who do not want to send their kids to girls blood now, who's going to volunteer and send their kids

to girls? I don't know, but if someone

can come up with a great idea, I'll be fine.

I'll listen.

We've heard that merging opes and SSE would bring the surviving school to full capacity. Was an option considered, where SSE would serve pre K through fourth grade and ovo fork fifth through eighth. It seems this would create community elementary and middle school options for SSI. Do the population study support this as a viable option to consider? Well, there's still 615,

elementary school students on saints on 11. If you go pre K to two, you're still going to have about half of them at one school and half of the other. So while we did discuss it, I think the idea of if you have two kids, one at each school, might be a problem. That was the that was the thing I heard for folks,

were any other options discussed that did not change the current district thing for all of so what? What other options were considered but ultimately decided

against? I think I'm coming over every option and we talked about everything that we discussed was listed on that one PowerPoint. Times.

There's some questions here about Title One, and so I just wanted to say a couple of things about it for people who aren't familiar. For the benefit of those who just don't know much about it, St John's Elementary is Hillary, title one school, all other schools in Glen, other than over point, I believe, are meaning that it receives additional federal funding as a result of more than 40% of its students being deemed economically disadvantaged or low income. Five federal standards. These funds currently support a lot here at St Simons elementary parent involvement coordinated position and all the programming and resources provided by that person, we have more than 22 family events last year, facilitated by our parent involvement coordinators, such as new parent meetings, curriculum nights, grandparents days and more, as well as assistance with bus transportation, translation services, Chromebooks to check out my families, and even still more so with that note is the line as the lines are drawn in the proposed plan where only families living on st Simons would be districted to SSE. The probability that this school, Saint Simons Elementary, retains its title one status, which requires four. 8% of students, even low income households, seems to be near zero, largely higher

zero, just according to the folks that we bring in. See Title One is decided like two years prior, and so we will be able to see what's going on long before saint Simon our COVID Four point is not the only non title one school. By the way, neither one of our high schools or title one, we made that decision a long time ago, and so there are actually three, however we would look at the students that we're bringing in from wherever to make sure that we can get the title one number. So I think the probability that both of them would be Title One might even be better than this house. I

If

Title One was was to be lost, you also mean a loss of support staff. Yes, alright, this one might be a little touchy, changes in real estate values and taxes, changes in other districting can have immediate effects on local real estate values. A shift from a higher rated to a lower rated school can lead to a decrease in property values as buyers reassess the desirability of the area. Has the committee taken into account the potential impact on homes the solo area took absolutely not

until I met with the folks from downtown, maybe three or three weeks ago. After that, I brought it to the committee, and we did discuss that for quite some time.

If homes home values are negatively impacted, my my follow up was going to end. What did you find out? Let's see what these what this question asked if home values are negatively impacted, and so as a result of the redistricting, that will in turn, decrease tax revenue for the city of Bronzeville, which may negatively impact other services the city's able to provide, such as police, fire, parks, perhaps to the other city of London. President. So have city officials been consulted about this plan, and are and are they in favor of it? So

I the mayor, was actually at the meeting we had in downtown Brunswick. I had lunch with Regina and her assistant a couple of weeks ago, and also one of our committee members is a city commissioner. None of them have given any major objection to what we're talking about to be so I will simply say this, if you want to know how they feel, ask them. I will feel comfortable telling you the things they said to me, but there was no major objection

I just I saw with your list of meetings that you have had something of the Small Business Association in Brunswick historic the historic district south

of Boston. Okay,

what researcher studies have been done to show how this will affect the future of homeownership, families and business development and downtown.

So my job is to do what's best for our 13,000 students. My job is not that. Now, if the real Board of Real Estate, or some real estate folks wants to come and talk to me about that, not being one of that, not one real estate folk, and the person has come and talk to me

about this, have they been invited to talk about this. I have an open

door. I have an open book.

Anyone can come.

I'm not sure the question here, but specifically relating to families who have moved into solo because of the incentive of more affordable housing combined with being districted here in Saint Simons for what would you do if you were in their same situation?

So it'd be easy for me to sit here and say, Oh, I sent my kid there, but that was easy to say, I can tell you what it did.

Where I live, we rezoned for Sterling Elementary, Jane mckinville school and Roanoke High School. I was the principal of run Academy, one of the best schools in the state of Georgia at the time, my kids went to Sterling their zone school. They went to Jane bacon their zone school, and they graduate from Brunswick High, their zone school. So to say what I would do, I'm not sure I can tell you what I

did. And you look at that,

will taxes go up for Winne county homeowners and businesses as a result of the new Glendale elementary construction and any required modifications to Burro to accommodate the increase in its population.

So the new construction was pretty much already paid for. That was raised by East West four terms of remodeling of girls, and that would be the best option in terms of finance for us to do. And that's not the reason we're talking about it. But if, in terms of finance, of all the other

options, that's the best cool

we're moving right along here, coming towards the end. It we understand the redistricting maps from the middle and high school levels are not yet complete.

Is that correct? That is 100% correct. In fact, they haven't even historically,

given that Glenn middle and Glen Academy are the closest middle and high schools, distance wise, the students that will be districted to SSE OBEs and the MES. Is it likely that those PL about treats will feed into Glen middle

and Glen Academy? That will be too many students in Glen middle so

we'll have to do something else. I will say that there is no plan to change saint Simon from going with Glendale opening Glen Academy. We would have to look at it and good year, because that would over if we did that, that would overcrowd come in.

If Saint Simons elementary at one more point, rosemalette will all three feed into Glendale, just as they haven't. So let's just see what this is. Has the administration consulted on the challenges that they be faced in consolidating two predominantly economically advantaged and mostly white school populations, with one predominantly economically disadvantaged and mostly minority school population at the sixth grade level,

because that's not what happened.

Thought, I've never found it doesn't take it once a plan is adopted by the Board of Education, people will make certain choices about where to live and where to send their children to school based on the adopted plan and the anticipated timing. What happens if population shifts occur between plan adoption and implementation? Could the plan change? What happens if it becomes apparent structure, the new Glendale elementary will not be completed by fall 2027

so the idea is that this starts not just on a date, but when a new Glendale, or the replacement Glendale is is finished. However, if the population doesn't shift like we think it will, we would have to come back and look at the plan. It just doesn't make any sense to keep going forward with a plan that's not going to work okay.

So as a school, as a parent, a parent rep of the school council, I think our job, as we spoke about it and discussed it, was to offer an opportunity for other parents and community members and stakeholders, and use that word to ask questions. We collected your questions, and I tried to ask now it would be, in my estimation, the job of the community to go further if they want to, to set up your own meetings and email Doctor Spence with any of your own questions, and I encourage you to do so. So Doctor Spence, one of the last things on here is, what's the best thing for next steps for people who are concerned, and I'm sure there are many in here, people have been scribbling notes on their papers. Seriously, as we've spoken, what's some good next steps for people to take?

I think the best thing to do is go ahead and email me your questions or talk to a committee member. I name your names and talk to them and let them know how you feel. Certainly you feel free to call your board member. But we're not trying to run it high here. We're trying to be an honest, honest to nobody as we possibly can. And we want to hear from you, certainly if you have some good ideas, bring them to me. I don't know everything. I can't be expected to do that, but I certainly will listen to folks if they have good ideas. This is not a done deal. It's not even close. We're trying to listen, trying to be open, and trying to be

I know you said it's not even close. It feels like it's pretty close, though, with December being ready to

do stuff, act quickly, I would suggest that map is dated March. Why

are we just hearing about this now? We've been working with this since February, and I told the committee members to feel free to share with the community, you're elected. They're elected. So we need to

stop this, you guys. We got

public so we need to stop with you guys.

Once again. Thank you, Dr Smith, our Board of Education members and our district administration for having me with us tonight. Our school council and you all came up with some really thought provoking questions, and there is not a proposal, obviously, that we are all going to agree on. So as Mister George suggested, we recommend that you reach out to Doctor Spence or any of the others with additional questions and follow up and obviously more opportunities for input to come. And thank you so much for coming this evening. We appreciate you guys a couple.

Name I.