T'ville schools praised by SACS team
By Arthur McLean Editor

It was a very positive report given by SACS review team members at the Thomasville City Schools meeting last week.

They praised the school system, board members and the community for it hospitality.

And when it came down to their review of the system itself, the praise continued.

During a slide show going over the report, SACS team members noted that Thomasville's school system had many strengths. Included in those strengths were strong support from the community, a dedicated school board, visionary leaders, focused staff, a large number of local staff members and enthusiastic students.

The review team also noted challenges that face the school system. Those included maintaining a sense of community while Thomasville continues to grow, limited housing opportunities, limited employment opportunities for graduates, traffic flow around the schools and the isolated geographic location of the school system, making field trips difficult.

Recommendations given by the review team included the following:

Study project growth of the city and school system for the next five to 10 years. Use professional learning communities to prioritize the system's educational needs. Study discipline issues that affect student development, achievement and safety.

Improve the school system's leadership development program. Expand the curriculum and examine the potential of having staggered dismissal times amongst the schools to reduce traffic congestion.

The official report from the review team will be issued within 30 days and it will recommend to SACS, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, that the Thomasville School System be approved for district accreditation "without reservation."

This makes Thomasville only the ninth system in the state to achieve district accreditation.

"I've never been more proud of our school system than I am right now," said board chairwoman Karen Bradford.

Schools superintendent Vic Adkison publicly commended Carolyn Drinkard for her work in organizing the school's preparations for the SACS review. The board also recog- nized former school superintendent Roger Speed. It was under Speed's tenure that the school system began preparing for a district-wide accreditation review.

"Once we receive the formal report, we'll share that with our teachers and staff," said Vic Adkison. "It will force us to do more strategic planning. We'll continue to engage in methods of quality assurance. It will force us to take it up a notch. Got a good check up but have some areas we need to improve."

The SACS review team members are: Cynthia Anderson, Karen Anderson, Robert Nocella, Frank Buck. quality assurance review team members.

Media row

With last week's meeting, the school board apparently changed its policy regarding questions from the media. Ivey Griffin of WJDB radio and Bradford reportedly got into a disagreement when Griffin tried to ask questions about itmes not on the agenda. This was the first time such a distinction was made in a board meeting, and no public discussion was held about changing the board's policy regarding media questions during meetings.

"The board is there to do business, and we don't want to get sidetracked from taking care of that," Adkison said. "It's pretty common everywhere."

Adkison drew a distinction between matters of policy, which are under the board's role, and administrative questions.

"Let's address the business first, and if there's anything administrative related I'm available the principals are available," he said. "We're still going to be open to those things. If it's someting administrative, it needs to go through administration, the board is over policy. We're going to keep an open door with that."

Adkison said he is concerned that board member contact with media and parents over administrative issues could create conflicts of interest when and if the board has to vote on policy regarding those issues. Questoning administrative policies and procedures with the board could make them unable to vote on things when they become policy matters, he said.

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