State school superintendent visits Americus

Genie Collins

AMERICUS — With only a week to go until the 2006 General Election, State School Superintendent Kathy Cox visited Americus-Sumter County High School South Campus on Monday to talk about issues in education.

Cox faces opposition from Democrat Denise Majette and Libertarian David Chastain in the Nov. 7 election. Cox sat down with the Times-Recorder for a series of questions on issue facing Georgia’s public schools.

“We are willing to work with local systems on any kind of initiative that they want to take that they think will enhance and improve student achievement, and we have a process set up to do that,” Cox said, of the same-sex school issue.

She said the State School Superintendent’s Office is in partnership with the people in Atlanta “who are moving to this girls’ and boys’ middle school, working with the Atlanta Public School systems and creating those charter schools.”

She said anytime a charter school is created, the school is in partnership with the state, the local school system and the chartering organization, even if it’s the local school system.

“We are always willing to work with local systems on ideas and innovations that they think are going to ... help student achievement,” she said. “Of course, we would like for those to be research-based.

“There is some research coming in that indicates that same-sex schools might actually help enhance student achievement in the middle grades.”

The second question had to do with teacher recruitment and retention, specifically a tax abatement program for teachers who come to teach in a specific county.

“Well, it’s a beautiful community,” Cox said of Americus and Sumter County. “It’s got a rich, rich history.

“You’re surrounded by wonderful natural beauty, as well as historical beauty ... There is so much potential here in this area to attract people, for a lot of different reasons.”

Cox said, “I think one of the things you’ve got to look at is ... teachers don’t just teach in a place, because of money.”

Cox explained that using money as an incentive to get teachers in Sumter County is a “great idea.”

“If you can get districts to focus on giving teachers supplements, ... we hope that it will help them attract teachers,” she said.

However, she said teachers need to feel supported in their jobs.

Cox mentioned a program called Comprehensive Academic Performance System (CAPS), a program that provides grants for school systems to implement an accountability system and an online communications system that enables teachers to track student progress, individualize instruction and provide parents with regular information about the academic progress of their children.

After the interview with Cox, Bari Geeslin, an assistant superintendent for Sumter County Schools, said Sumter County did receive such a grant, but the money was used to put toward the software the Board of Education had already committed to purchase. The grant was awarded to Staley Middle School, and was in the amount of approximately $60,000.

Geeslin said the types of software purchased was Testgate and Thinkgate.

In the interview of CAPS, Cox said, “It helps you put aside all the other stuff and look at student achievement, and it can be incredibly sobering.

“The kind of focus that the CAPS program will bring to teaching and learning and adherence to the standards is going to be really ... beneficial,” she said. “It will help you attract teachers, and it will help keep teachers.”

The next question had to do with bringing students from behind up to standards and moving ahead students who are above standards and moving all students forward their first year.

Cox said the key to how teachers complete this is, “Assessment, and then differentiating instruction, and teachers are trying to do that.”

“When you teach the standards, it’s a year-long process,” Cox added. “But that constant monitoring and assessing that you do as a teacher allows you to realize who’s getting it and who’s not, who’s ahead of the curve.”

She explained this assessment would be part of the CAPS program in helping teachers determine who’s meeting standards and who needs extra help.

“If you look at the data for Sumter County, yes, you are still seeing some differences in the younger kids; but Sumter County is really no different in the long run from the rest of the state, but we’re closing those differences in the elementary school,” she said.

“We’ve got to get those kinds of best practices put into our middle and high schools,” Cox said. She stressed the CAPS system would help teachers use data from grades kindergarten through 12th.

“The hardest part of using data is ... in high school,” she said. “Teachers have never been trained to do it.”

“You’ve really got to have the mechanics of it down, so that it becomes part of the teachers’ routine, and it doesn’t feel like this extra burden,” Cox said. “That’s why we gave the money for the technology, but we also gave the money for the instructional coaches.”

After Cox’s interview, Geeslin explained that CAPS came with a coach. The coaches help teachers use the data.

“We’ve got systems ... who are doing it at the high school level,” she said.

The next question had to do with parental involvement in education, and if there was any movement going on to get parents back to the classrooms.

“We did pass the truancy legislation that did set up the truancy protocol committee,” Cox noted. She said this system takes the issue of deficient school attendance beyond the problem of the school, but the truancy protocol system involves the Juvenile Court judge, the Superior Court judge, the local Department of Family and Children Services (DFACS) and the school are working together.

“If the protocol is set up, it shouldn’t be just the school calling the parent and saying, ‘Your child hasn’t been in school,’” Cox said. “That protocol ought to be set up so that the Superior Court judge gets a call, because I guarantee you, if you lock a few parents up for failure to send their kids to school, you send a message quick, and it will have an impact.”

Cox said, “One thing you can, in some of the most desperate cases, is you can use that new law and that protocol and get everyone in the community to agree ‘tough love’ ... That’s how they solved the problem in Fanning County.

“Then you begin to get people’s attention that the community is serious about truancy, and they’re serious about attending school,” Cox said. “The teacher says, ‘We can’t teach them if they’re not here.’”

She said once you get the students to school, teachers and administrators have to ask what they are doing to “invite parents.”

Cox stressed the concept of “calling upon parents” and “calling in parents.” She said that 90 percent of the time in high school, parents are being called in, when the students get in trouble, rather than calling upon parents with ideas or suggestions for helping students with their lessons.

She said educators need to get parents more involved with their children and working to meet standards.

Cox also stressed “thinking outside the box” and meeting parents “half way.”

The last question involved the growing number of Hispanic students assimilating American culture.

Cox suggested making visits to parents, going to churches where parents attend. She suggested feeding parents and taking the initiative to get their child involved in sports or art.

“Approximately 95 percent of parents want their kids to do better than they’re doing,” Cox said.

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