Amendment 1

On Tuesday, September 18th, Alabama will conduct a special state-wide election to consider a referendum known as Amendment 1. Amendment 1 will be a "yes or no" vote. If the majority of voters approve Amendment 1, the State will be granted constitutional permission to borrow $437 million dollars from the Alabama Trust Fund. The Alabama Trust Fund is a state fund that receives royalties from companies that are involved in the off shore drilling for oil and natural gas. The Alabama Trust Fund currently has a balance of $2.3 billion dollars. Amendment 1 provides the State 14 years for the borrowed funds to be repaid to the Alabama Trust Fund.

The $437 million will be used over the next three fiscal years to provide revenue to the State's General Fund. The State's General Fund has diminished annually since 2008. Medicaid, prisons, and the Alabama court system are all funded through the State's General Fund and all are struggling greatly.

How does Amendment 1 affect school districts? Our state will not and cannot stop the services provided by Medicaid, prisons, and courts. All three of these areas have received significant cuts in funding for 5 consecutive years and cannot withstand additional cuts.  If Amendment 1 fails to pass, the State will have two choices: increase taxes or shift money from the Education Trust Fund.  It does not take Nostradamus to see which of these two options would likely become a reality.

Therefore, if Amendment 1 fails to pass, current levels of state funding to local school districts will be jeopardized. Decreases in state funding will force all of Alabama's public school districts to make many very difficult and unavoidable decisions. If Amendment 1 passes, the dedicated  people (certified and support) who comprise the Alabama public school system are more likely in the future to see a well deserved and long overdue increase in compensation.

What can you do? Go vote on September 18th. Explain Amendment 1 to your friends and family members. Get them to go vote on September 18th. Most Alabamians who support public schools can be found Friday (September 14th) at their local high school football game. This would be an ideal venue to encourage voters to support Amendment 1.

IT IS A FULL HOUSE!

The final AYP reports are out and we are VERY proud of EVERYONE!  For those that need to "see it to believe it."  Here it is:

Mrs. Kilpatrick's Classes Work Toward Computational Fluency

Mrs. Sandra Kilpatrick's (HHS) 4th graders are shown working on multiplication fluency. Students are naming factors and multiples while completing a math workshop activity entitled "Multiple Turnover." The activity allows students to associate a factor with several multiples, therefore, creating a stronger foundation in multiplication fluency. 

HHS Receives 2011-2012 High Stakes Testing Trophy

For the second consecutive year, Highland Home School was awarded the system's high stakes trophy.  All three schools were in a virtual dead-heat, but Highland edged the others in mathematics. Congratulations to the students and faculty of Highland Home School.

Principal Barry Gross Accepts Trophy on behalf of HHS from Superintendent Randy Wilkes.
The presentation was made at last week's pep rally.  

Coach Dale goes Cuneiform

Coach Dale Simmons' 8^th Grade classes recently completed a Cuneiform project.  Each class made their own Cuneiform using play-dough.  Students are studying this earliest known form of writing by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia.  Students noted the difficulty of ancient writing systems as compared to modern modes of communication (i.e. texting)

NCLB WAVIER REQUEST UPDATE

On last Thursday, the State Board of Education formally requested a waiver from many of the onerous, bureaucratic requirements of NCLB. The waiver request is available at this link. 

As mentioned during Institute, one of the sections of the waiver request is the proposed Alabama Accountability Model. There are four sections to the proposal: 

1. Learners (student achievement, growth, gap-closure, and college and career readiness); 

2. Support systems (program reviews, grad rate, attendance, test participation, etc);

3. Professionals (teacher and principal evaluations);

4. Schools and Systems (5% of overall score will be from locally-designed indicators).

Area (3) will require an additional evaluation component, to include student performance as a component of educator evaluations. 

Area (1) will require a new set of assessments. End-of-course tests in high school and the ACT suite will be used in addition to a new test in grades 3-8 starting in spring 2014.

Alabama has chosen to replace the current AMOs (reaching 100% achievement for all groups by 2014) with a new goal to "reduce by half" the number of students "not proficient" within six years. This reduction would occur in each subgroup.

Notably, for each sub-group, the n-count is proposed to be lowered from 40 to 20.

BHS Receives Extra Supply Funds

Covington Electric Cooperative donated $250 in instructional supply money for each teacher at Brantley School.  Pictured (L to R)  Ed Short, CEO of Covington Electric Cooperative, Dodd Hawthorne,  Willie Smith, Covington Electric Trustee Chairman, and Ashley Kilcrease.