The Alexander City Outlook

Citizens speak to County BOE

An unusually large number of citizens were present at yesterday’s regularly scheduled meeting of the Tallapoosa County Board of Education.

After taking care of its usual duties – paying the bills, approving the agenda and monthly financial reports and a handful of other items– the board allowed two concerned citizens to speak.

First to speak was Ronald Jackson, executive director with Citizens for Better Schools and Sustainable Communities, who was there to discuss a recent settlement that Tallapoosa County Schools had made with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR).

Jackson alleged that there were five areas of racial discrimination that he believed were occurring in Tallapoosa County Schools. Jackson filed an official complaint with the OCR alleging the following:

n the district has disproportionately assigned in-school suspensions and out-of-school suspensions to African American students for offenses which it did not similarly discipline white students

n the district assigned African American students to the district’s alternative school at a rate more than double their ratio of their presence in the district as compared to white students

n the district is not providing the students with a free appropriate public educations, as they are disproportionately assigned to special education

n the district does not lawfully implement its Section 504 and the Individuals with Disabilities Act programs, resulting in African American students being placed in self-contained classrooms

n African American students at Edward Bell High School were denied the opportunity to enroll in the math AP class offered at the school on the basis of race

“(Citizens for Better Schools and Sustainable Communities) are going to implement a statewide initiative to make sure other school systems are not making the same errors Tallapoosa County is,” Jackson said. “Under Title VI, OCR cannot enter into an agreement unless they have a reasonable belief that racial discrimination has occurred.”

Assistant superintendent John Wilcox said that the board had entered into a settlement agreeing to review and report their findings to the OCR, which carries with it no admission of fault.

“We have admitted no fault because we don’t believe we are at fault,” Wilcox said. “We have simply agreed to review our operations at our schools here and report back to the OCR on a semi-regular basis.”

According to the resolution agreement, the school will report requested information back to the OCR for the 2010-11, 2011-12 and 2012-13 school years.

Jackson also complained of transparency on behalf of the board, as well as high transportation costs due to inefficient bus routes.

Wilcox, however, said the board has been as transparent as they could be.

“We have offered documentation to Mr. Jackson in printed form and electronic form,” Jackson said.

Wilcox also questioned Jackson’s transportation figures.

“We certainly look for ways to trim back when we can, and if we can shorten a route, we are going to shorten it,” Wilcox said. “Quite frankly, I don’t know where Mr. Jackson got his information, nor do I know when he became an expert on school transportation.”

The second speaker of the night was Frank Holley, which spoke on the behalf of the PACERS Concerned Citizens of Camp Hill. The group had prepared a petition calling for the reopening of Edward Bell School, and came with a resolution from the city of Camp Hill that echoed this sentiment.

“We are in phase two of what we started out doing,” Holley said. “We came before the board requesting them not to close Edward Bell School. We even presented alternatives to closing the school.”

Holley said they could have rezoned the school system so that Edward Bell School was not as small.

“Our group concluded that it wasn’t about low enrollment, it wasn’t about proration and it wasn’t the economy,” Holley said. “We believe that the leadership would rather see Dadeville High School win another state championship in football than for the best school to stay open in our system.”

Holley shared a story from a student, alleging that the student rode an estimated 35-40 miles on the bus to school.

Wilcox said that this was simply not true.

“Transportation is just the next area of attack,” Wilcox said. “No student at Edward Bell travels anymore than they did before, except for the additional eight miles to Dadeville.”

The resolution from Camp Hill was read into the record by Holley, and the meeting was adjourned. The January meeting of the Board of Education was cancelled, with its next work session now slated for Feb. 7, with the regular meeting to follow Feb. 13.