Education

School Officials Watch for Troubled Students to Avoid School Violence

In the wake of the latest deadly school shooting, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., school officials, law enforcement and parents across the country are asking what can be done to prevent the next one. That's true in Alabama and Birmingham, as elsewhere. In Alabama, there isn’t one standard set of practices used by schools to identify and monitor students, like the shooter Nikolas Cruz in Parkland, who might be prone to violence. “Alabama State Department of Education does not have policies on identifying/monitoring troubled youth in schools,” said Michael Sibley, director of communications for the department. Read more

by Cheryl Slocum

School Officials Use a Variety of Approaches to Watch for Troubled Students

In the wake of the latest deadly school shooting,  at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., school officials, law enforcement and parents across the country are asking what can be done to prevent the next one.  That's true in Alabama and Birmingham, as elsewhere. In Alabama, there isn’t one standard set of practices used by schools to identify and monitor students, like the shooter Nikolas Cruz in Parkland, who might be prone to violence. “Alabama State Department of Education does not have policies on identifying/monitoring troubled youth in schools,” said Michael Sibley, director of communications for the department. Read more

by Cheryl Slocum

Gardendale School Board Explores Cost-Cutting Measures While Debating Next Legal Step

Members of the Gardendale Board of Education met Monday night in special session, getting together for the first time since losing a decision on their efforts to form a separate school system. The city has been trying for more than four years to break away from the Jefferson County Schools, but their effort has been blocked by federal courts, which agreed with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund’s argument that there was racial motivation behind the proposed split. The board Monday approved two steps to save money while awaiting the next move, including trying to negotiate an early termination of the lease for the board’s office suite so it can move into city-owned space. Read more.

by Robert Carter

Federal Appeals Court Denies Gardendale’s Breakaway From Jefferson County Schools; City Board Says “Fight is Not Over”

Updated – Saying that the move was motivated by discriminatory intentions from the start, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has struck down the city of Gardendale’s attempt to break away from the Jefferson County Schools and form its own municipal system. In a decision published Tuesday morning by the Atlanta-based court, a three-judge panel found that U.S. District Judge Madeline Haikala “committed no clear error in (her) findings of a discriminatory purpose and of impeding the desegregation” of JefCoEd schools, but that Haikala erred when she handed down a ruling that allowed a “partial secession” of the city’s two elementary schools, while allowing the middle and high school to stay under county control. In a press conference at the Hugo Black U.S. Courthouse in Birmingham, Gardendale officials vowed that they would continue their fight to establish a municipal system. Jefferson County Superintendent Craig Pouncey, on the other hand, was pleased with the decision and said he hoped it would allow his system to move on with projects that have been on hold because of the case. Read more.

by Robert Carter

PARCA Looks at Rates for College-Bound Graduates

The Public Affairs Research Council of Alabama has found that Alabama high schools are sending more graduates out into the world and they are sending more students to college, but some of those students are taking a little bit of time out in the world before they head to campus. In 2016, 63 percent of high school graduates enrolled in college in the year after they graduated from high school, according to PARCA. In 2014, that portion was 65 percent Read more data from PARCA’s College-Going Rates for Alabama High Schools report.

by Virginia Martin

Some School Officials Protest as Birmingham Metro Schools Get As to Ds on First Letter Grade Report Cards

The first letter grade report card day for Alabama’s schools and school systems – much like report card days for school students – brought celebration, disappointment and some strong reactions. Alabama schools’ report cards were released Thursday morning by the Alabama State Department of Education and, for the first time, gave letter grades to Alabama’s 1,247 public schools and 137 school systems. You can look up the detailed report cards for the schools, school systems and the state. Jefferson County Schools, the second-largest school system in the state with 56 schools, scored a C, the same letter grade as the state school system. But, that C and the whole idea of a letter grade didn’t sit well with Dr. Craig Pouncey, county school superintendent, and other school leaders. Superintendents across the state have criticized the letter grade report cards as too narrow and too reliant on one standardized test, the ACT Aspire, which is not even being used by the state going forward. They also have complained that the one letter grade is not a full or accurate measure of school performance. Marion, Chambers County and some other systems have voted no confidence in the report cards, and more system officials have criticized them. Read more.

by Jackie Romine Walburn

Birmingham Metro Schools Get As to Ds on First Letter Grade Report Cards

Metro Birmingham school systems scored As to Ds on Alabama’s first-ever letter grade report cards for schools. The letter grade and performance information for each of Alabama’s 1,325 public schools and 173 school systems were released by the Alabama State Education in a searchable online dashboard Thursday morning. The dashboard includes a letter grade, each system or school’s performance on standardized tests and other indicators. Grades for the 11 school systems in Jefferson County and the three in neighboring Shelby County cover the full spectrum. Homewood, Hoover, Mountain Brook, Trussville and Vestavia Hills scored As. Birmingham, Bessemer, Fairfield, Midfield and Tarrant scored Ds. Read more.

by Jackie Romine Walburn

Alabama School Report Cards Coming Thursday

Alabama’s public schools and school systems will be getting their first-ever letter grade report cards Thursday. The letter grades and performance information for each of Alabama’s 1,325 public schools and 173 school systems will be posted at the Alabama Department of Education’s website by 10 a.m., said Michael Sibley, director of communications for the department. Read more.

by Jackie Romine Walburn

Alabama Failing Schools List Includes 22 Metro Schools

A list of 75 “failing” schools in Alabama includes 22 schools in the Birmingham metro area – 14 Birmingham city schools, two in the Jefferson County school system, and two each in Bessemer, Fairfield and Midfield. Based on 2017 test results in math and reading on the ACT Aspire standardized tests, failing schools are defined as those with students scoring in the lowest 6 percent of state schools. The failing designation and definition is defined by the Alabama Accountability Act of 2013 that was modified in 2015 to exclude schools that serve special populations of students with disabilities. The Alabama State Department of Education posted the list of failing schools, 75 out of Alabama’s 1,325 public schools, online Jan. 24, Read more. See the list of Alabama schools on the 2018 Alabama Accountability Act failing schools list.

by Jackie Romine Walburn

What to Watch in 2018

2018 promises to be an interesting time, as the Chinese blessing (or curse) goes. Alabama and Birmingham, specifically, will be tackling many issues involving education and school management, jobs and the economy, the environment, crime and, of course, party politics and political leadership, to name a few. BirminghamWatch asked community leaders and contributors for insight on important issues that are likely to be demanding attention this year. Read what they had to say. Read more. What news are you watching for in 2018? Visit our Facebook post and tell us in a comment, or send us an email at editor@birminghamwatch.org, and and we might watch it, too. We always want to know what's important to people in the community.

by BirminghamWatch