The School Board tabled the resolution to adopt All City High as its new alternative education initiative. This small victory does not mean that the plan was rejected but that parents now have a great deal of work to do before the Board’s next Business Meeting in March when the resolution will again be scheduled for a vote.
The Community Education Task Force along with Cynthia Middleton, parent, and Edward Goolsby, President of the NAACP spoke out against the proposal stating that there was little to no parent involvement in the planning of the school, its programs, or its goals. Commissioner White stated that the district’s own Parent Advisory Council was against the adoption of the proposed school.
Parents and community members now have one month to create and propose an alternative to the alternative school and present that proposal at the March 12, 2010 Excellence In Student Achievement meeting. Commissioner White made it clear that something had to be done to address the needs of this population of students.
This is an excellent opportunity for the student, parent, and community voice to be heard. They have already begun to collaborate and formulate a solution to this problem.
On Saturday, February 18, 2012, Community Advocates for Educational Excellence, 101 S. Plymouth Ave., is meeting from 10:00AM until Noon to discuss the situation. The NAACP and other community groups plan to join them. This is the only way we can begin to effect change in the system of education for our children; by working together, in one accord, with one voice.
We cannot consider this situation as isolated. There are many problems in this district that have gone unacknowledged which have led to the current crisis before us. Waiting until our children have become young men and women who are “over-age and under-credit” is waiting to long. Our children are dropping out of education in second grade and until we begin to concentrate on the problems at the early childhood, elementary level, we will continue to wrestle with the failure of our young adults.
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