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More opinions voiced against Muscogee County School District alternative education proposal

Columbus Ledger-Enquirer - 4/25/2017

April 25--More than a dozen people spoke during Monday evening's 2 1/2 -hour public forum about alternative education in the Muscogee County School District, and the overriding message was that they agree with the administration that such services must be improved, but they disagree with the proposed solution.

Among the crowd of approximately 40 residents in the Synovus Room at the Columbus Public Library, only one spoke in favor of superintendent David Lewis' controversial recommendation to hire Camelot Education, a private, for-profit company based in Austin, Texas, to run three alternative education programs for $6.4 million annually. In a 5-3 vote April 10, the Muscogee County School Board tabled the plan for three months to instead establish a community advisory committee and further explore MCSD's options to better serve students with severe emotional or behavioral disorders, severe discipline problems and those who are over-age and under-credited.

Two weeks later, the board has yet to announce that committee. Vice chairwoman Kia Chambers, who made the prevailing motion April 10, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email April 19, "The group will be a collaborative group of subject matter experts and each board member was asked to submit a name from their district. Dr. Lewis has agreed to have someone from his staff present as well."

Meanwhile, parents Waleisah Wilson and Marianne Young aren't waiting. They organized Monday's forum to jump-start the advising -- and the main piece of advice was clear: MCSD and the community has the professionals available to improve these services if they are properly trained, empowered and utilized, but the current staff must do a better job of listening to parents.

Suzie Lawson Dunson has a grandson who's been in the Woodall Program, which serves MCSD's students with severe emotional or behavioral problems. The board unanimously voted during a called meeting Aug. 1 to close the Woodall Center, which housed the program, after the state declared it to be among 24 facilities in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support to be unsafe and unhealthy. The program now is housed in Davis Elementary School and Carver High School.

Dunson said her grandson, diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder, was handcuffed to a chair in the Woodall Center's office when he was a first-grader. Now age 10 and reading on a second-grade level, she said, "we pulled him out three weeks ago" from the Woodall Program after being there for six years. "We're just done. We didn't find out (her grandson) was restrained every day this year through paperwork; we found out by asking, 'How was your day?'"

Dunson asserted, "Your child's not going to get what they deserve out of that tired, frustrated person, because these kids will get on your nerves. ... I think the teachers do a fine job being teachers. That's their job. I think we need to hire professional people to meet these children where they are."

The proposal to hire Camelot also would create a new program for over-age and under-credited students. The third program, the one for students with severe discipline violations, currently is called AIM (Achievement, Integrity and Maturity) and is housed at the Edgewood Student Services Center. MCSD and seven other defendants were sued last month for $25 million in a personal injury complaint stemming from a contracted behavioral specialist allegedly body-slamming a 13-year-old boy multiple times Sept. 12, resulting in his right leg being amputated below the knee.

Wilson, founder and president of NewLife-Second Chance Outreach Inc., a nonprofit organization helping former inmates transition back into the Columbus community, said she visited the AIM Program along with Columbus NAACP chapter president Tonza Thomas and Ife Adebowale, the minister of education for the People's Party for Independence, whose Facebook page describes the organization as dedicated to "strengthening the Africans in America by economically doing for self and building confidence to defend our cultural and political integrity."

Wilson said they saw at AIM "teachers and a principal that children obviously adore. They connect with them. A lot of times when you have children with behavior issues, they bond with people who really show that they care. ... This is not a race thing, but we cannot neglect the fact that 90 percent of the people who will be in this program are black boys."

A woman who said she is a substitute teacher at AIM but didn't disclose her name said students told her they purposely get in fights at their regular school to return to AIM.

"Teachers actually care about them there," Adebowale said. "... I don't think bringing in a for-profit organization to these kids that already have a sense of belonging and loving teachers surrounding them and bringing in a whole bunch of strangers to try to do the same thing, it's just not going to mesh up."

What's lacking at AIM, Wilson said, are therapists and counselors.

"Instead of using $6.4 million to bring Camelot and their staff in," Wilson said as she introduced Thomas, "this is what you can do with the $6.4 million."

After speaking with AIM principal Reginald Griffin, Thomas said, "Mr. Griffin needs two elementary school teachers, two math teachers for high school, two science teachers, and he also needs a school psychologist or sociologist with the cultural aspect so that we can condition these children's minds from being behavioral to being productive."

Jack Potts, a postal service worker with four children in MCSD but none in alternative education, said, "I actually am for Camelot -- don't boo me -- but I'm not talking about Camelot. ... Unless we make changes, the district's not going to make any changes. ... We are the boss, but we've got to take action."

Retired teacher Ken Paulk, who taught high school economics and history for 35 years, proposed other alternatives: bring back more parapros for all classes in kindergarten through third grade; hire more special-needs teachers and better retain them by reducing their paperwork; reduce class sizes; bring in more retired teachers for part-time or volunteer work to lighten the load on full-time teachers; reach out to more churches and other organizations to help with reading and other skills.

"Let's use the tools in our community," Paulk said. "... Public education is not and cannot be run as a business."

Community activist Joe Foster, who has worked in gang cessation and GED programs, said the key is to determine "best practices" and then figure out whether MCSD is using them.

Project Rebound director J.A. Hud, who facilitates psychosocial development for those disrupted by social conditions, urged more consideration of public charter schools. Camelot's schools aren't charters; they remain public and in the school district.

Tollie Strode, leader of the Columbus Consolidated Government watchdog organization called CCG Accountability Forum, said he came to Monday's gathering "to get educated, and I'm walking away with a much more clear understanding of the issues we face."

He summed up what he heard by saying, "We're against heading down the Camelot path, but before you can stand in your place, understand what the real problem is. ... Everything that's going on here is not student- and parent-centric; it's administration-centric."

Mark Rice: 706-576-6272, @markricele

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(c)2017 the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, Ga.)

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