Case Study: Saginaw Public School District

Communication within the Westside School District No. 5 between the school district and the communities and families that it serves is a very dynamic process. I talked with district administrators, community members, researched pertinent information in the Arkansas State University library, and various governmental online sources and found very helpful information to include in this sociological inventory. Westside Consolidated School District No. 5 is a consolidation of primarily three school districts Bono, Cash and Egypt located in Craighead County, Arkansas in 1966 (Westside, 2017). The district also includes parts of Walnut Ridge and Alicia in Lawrence County and parts of Jonesboro in Craighead County. The district has three school buildings housing students from pre-Kindergarten through twelfth grade. The elementary school is the school for

Clay Country Schools are located in the southwest corner of North Carolina. The school district is currently the only that serves the county providing all grade levels, Pre-K through 12th Grade located on one campus. The campus consists of Hayesville Elementary School, Hayesville Middle School, and Hayesville High School. Historically Clay County Schools has not always been the only public school system to serve the county. Below is a case study of the history of the schools in Clay County and the demographic and fiscal characteristics of the current school system along with statewide comparisons and a recent North Carolina school lawsuit.

Seminole county schools is a top ranked school district, located in Central Florida. “Seminole County schools is ranked in the top 100 school districts in the nation in terms of offering high quality education in a moderately priced community. The school district has been recognized every year since 1992 for being in the top 10% of the nation's 15,600 school districts as meeting the needs of families choosing schools. Seminole County had 94% of their schools rated A or B schools with 80% earning an A.” ("Education", 2016)

I teach in the Westside Consolidated Number Five School District in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The school district is a consolidation of three small rural town school districts Bono, Egypt, and Cash, Arkansas in 1968. I met with my mentor Mr. Scott Gaunt the school district superintendent on January 18, 2017 between meetings with district leaders and countywide superintendents. We met and discussed the community relations plan and identified the two most important issues for our district as identified in the poll by the Phi Delta Kappan and the Gallop poll. The issues were the lack of financial support for the school district to provide an adequate education for students and the testing and regulations imposed on school districts that lower educational time for students while in school.

Why do you believe your background and experience make you the best fit for Fluvanna County Public Schools?

From going over the problems and possible solutions while considering the participants and the organizational culture of Saginaw Public School District the next step is to come up with a decision. In January of 2013 when the State of Michigan Department of Education wrote a letter to Saginaw Public Schools saying that they had to come up with a definite plan to decrease the deficit the district decided to close one of the middle schools and have both high schools with 8th through 12 grade. The decision was made by Saginaw Public Schools School board members after listening for months about all the solutions that were presented to them. The board members had to hear voices from the community members, parents, and students. The superintendents also were at the meetings and community forums to hear from the community and came up with the plan to add one grade to the high school and close one middle school. Along with closing one middle school two elementary schools will be closed and the staff development building to cut expenses. Along with closing the buildings there was also 36 teachers, 6 administrators, 2 counselors, 8 secretaries, and other support staff to save the district an estimated 3.6 million. The board approved of this decision 4-3 and the state of Michigan approved of this budget cut.

Saginaw Public School District is an urban school district located in Saginaw, Michigan. Over the past 10 years the school district has experienced setbacks that have caused the district to obtain a negative reputation in the state of Michigan. Before discussing the problems of the Saginaw Public School District it is useful to introduce the city of Saginaw. The city of Saginaw has a population of approximately 50,303 according to data taken in 2013. Since the year 2000 the city has experienced a population decrease of 18.6 percent. The estimated median household income in 2013 was $27, 189 dollars. The racial make-up of the city of Saginaw is approximately 44 percent Black 37.7 percent white 14.3 percent Hispanic .3 percent American

Payette School District is located in Payette, Idaho and was founded in 1885. Payette is a small town in Idaho right next to the Oregon border with about 7,430 residents. The school district is employing 77 teachers and has a total staff of 81. With around 1,617 students, the schools, in total, currently have a 21:1 student to teacher ratio.

Washington University, I have my Masters in Teaching with an endorsement in English-Language Arts and

Roanoke Valley Governor’s School is known for its Project Forum. Students can work independently on creating a research study project that has a great potential for changing the world. Two subjects I am passionate about are improving the environment and finding the most efficient way to learn. My two ideas for Project Forum involve making a more friendly car for the environment and finding what type of note taking students learn the best from.

The third solution would be to close both Arthur Hill and Saginaw High school and build a new high school. This solution was presented by the mayor of Saginaw. The mayor feels that it will be in the best need of the city to move forward with a new identity. The mayor acknowledges that it will be a difficult process to sacrifice the culture, mascots and historical buildings. Both high schools Saginaw High and Arthur Hill have years of rich history and traditions. The new high school would be a newly built school that will be located in downtown Saginaw or in another central location. The school will also have an International Baccalaureate High school which will have an increase in science and math curriculum by allowing courses in science

I am writing as a concerned Loudoun County parent, with two children attending Catoctin Elementary School, and a daughter who attends JL Simpson Middle School. As you are aware, the Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Purdue is visiting Catoctin Elementary school today. In the past Loudoun County schools have hosted administration officials from both political parties; however, I cannot recall a time when a major national policy announcement perceived as controversial was enacted on one of these visits during school hours.

Anne Arundel County Public Schools (AACPS) has many pre-existing policies to ensure a positive and effective learning environment can be established. These policies cover areas such as curriculum writing and grading. In order to effectively develop a sailing based STEM curriculum for elementary school students these guidelines must be followed.

Dr. Martin invited Dennis O’Connor to share details of the district marketing plan with the Board. Since starting this plan in the spring, Mr. O’Connor met several times with central office administrators, and has put forth a good deal of effort to learn how the district operates.

One thing that I like about Elkhart Schools is that the school board switches up the locations of their meetings, and holds them at different schools. Pierre Moran hosted one of the last school board meetings, and it was awesome to see the board members out. It was also nice to receive all of the compliments about our building from them. I hope that they will come out, as you stated earlier, to go into classrooms so they can see all the good things that are going