BOE to hold hearing on waiver application Monday

The Houston County Board of Education will lead off its work session Monday at Feagin Mill Middle School with a public hearing to discuss the submission of an Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2)/Strategic Waiver School System application to the Georgia Department of Education.

The Georgia House passed a bill in 2008 that offered school systems “flexibility models” in which they could remain as they were, or go to IE2, or to a charter system.

“We chose IE2, now called strategic waiver system, because we thought it was the best fit for us,” said Superintendent Mark Scott said. The application is a five-year contract between the local board of education and the state Department of Education and the Governor’s Office of Student Achievement, or GOSA.

GOSA sets out what school systems will do for accountability, he said.

The school system lays out where the schools lie with the College and Career Ready Performance Index (CCRPI), which the department uses statewide for accountability, he said.

Schools and school systems are subject to a variety of measurements from four main categories: class size, certification, salary schedule and classroom expenditure.

In the application, the school system addresses flexibility, accountability and consequences, Scott said.

The process began about six to eight months ago, and Scott hopes to present the completed application to the Houston County Board of Education in late March or early April.

One barrier to a quicker completion is not having state data for the 2014-15 school year, Scott said, adding that it was a concern.

“But one of our goals is to be the best we can be, have the best schools we can have, help our teachers get better where we can,” he said. “One of the things we talk about in the contract is that we want to align professional learning to the needs of the teachers.”

Rather than pulling teachers out of class to attend seminars, the school system is working more closely “with their students, their data and their schools, working on things that help their schools get better and using what they’re already doing rather than trying to create some new instructional strategy,” he said.

Some aspects of the application may sound like the old No Child Left Behind, he said, but the big difference is it is less about test scores and more about student achievement.

The hearing is set for 6 p.m. The complete draft document of the IE2/SWSS application is available for review on the Houston County Board of Education website, www.hcbe.net/?DivisionID=14875&De-partmentID=22641.

School and community stakeholders are invited to comment on this matter at the work session or by contacting the Assistant Superintendent for Teaching and Learning Eric Payne at eric.payne@hcbe.net or phone at 478-988-6200.

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