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COMMUNITY
School board endorses
‘dual accreditation’
BL JOE EARLE
joeearle@reporternewspapers. net
As DeKalb County school officials
work to fully restore the system’s accred
itation, the school board has endorsed
a plan to allow DeKalb high schools to
seek accreditation individually from a
state accrediting agency.
The board voted 7-2 on July 1 to
have the county’s high schools seek ac
creditation individu
ally from the Georgia
Accrediting Com
mission, an Athens-
based group that ac
credits high schools
in Georgia, according
to District 2 board
member Marshall
D. Orson and Dun
woody City Council
man Terry Nall, who
attended the board
meeting.
The “dual accreditation” plan had
been backed by parents in Dunwoody
and elsewhere in DeKalb, who saw it as
a way to get a “back-up” accreditation
for Dunwoody High and other high
schools should the Southern Association
of Colleges and Schools, a regional agen
cy known as SACS, revoke the system’s
accreditation. SACS has placed the sys
tem’s accreditation on probation.
“It’s a safety net,” Nall said. “It means
if SACS accreditation is pulled for any
reason, the school will still be accredited.
... It means graduating students can say
on college applications and applications
for scholarships they graduated from an
accredited high school.”
But Orson said he didn’t believe
that the DeKalb system would lose its
accreditation from
SACS, so the state ac
creditation wasn’t in
tended by the board
as a back-up. Instead,
he said, the board
thought it would be
worthwhile to have a
second agency take a
look at school opera
tions.
“I think the con
sensus is that it wasn’t
a bad idea to have
multiple agencies looking at what we’re
doing in our system,” Orson said. “I am
quite confident we will restore accredi
tation with SACS, but in this new era
of accountability ... the more scrutiniz
ing us, the better. I think we’ll withstand
that scrutiny.”
The board agreed to delay the start of
the state accrediting process until 2014,
so it would not interrupt the SACS pro
cess, Orson and Nall said.
“I think the consensus is
that it wasn’t a bad idea
to have multiple agencies
looking at what we’re
doing in our system.”
-MARSHALL D. ORSON
- DISTRICT 2 BOARD MEMBER
City taking another look at
weather warning systems
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1
don’t use it very often, but when you
do.... It’s a safety issue.”
Other council members said the de
vices would not have provided any addi
tional warning during the June 14 storm
that downed more than 30 trees and
knocked out power for hours or days for
some residents. Instead, they argued res
idents could be warned better by other
types of devices, such as cellphone-based
warnings or weather radios.
“If radios are the way to go and we’re
hell-bent on spending money,” Mayor
Mike Davis said, “and protecting every
body in the city, let’s buy them all ra
dios.”
But relatively few use the warn
ings now available in Dunwoody. Po
lice Chief Billy Grogan told the council
that only 1,500 to 1,600 residents have
registered for the Code Red warnings by
phone.
A warning siren system that would
cover the city of Dunwoody would like
ly cost $200,000 to $300,000, said Kim
berly Greer, assistant to the city manag
er. In recent years, Dunwoody officials
have pursued federal or state grants to
pay for warning sirens, Greer said, but
so far, “we have been unsuccessful.”
Shortal said that the city should bud
get the money to buy the sirens. “If we
can’t budget it this year, I’d put it on the
budget cycle for next year,” he said.
But Councilman Terry Nall said the
city should continue to look for grants.
“To budget for tornado sirens, at the
moment, I remain unconvinced,” Nall
said.
Several council members wanted to
investigate the possibility of installing
smaller warning systems similar to ones
they said are used on ball fields or golf
courses. Those systems, they said, warn
people in open areas of potential light
ning storms.
Councilwoman Lynn Deutsch said
city officials shouldn’t let the recent
storm influence their long-term deci
sion. Instead, she said, they should get
more information about the various
warning systems.
“It’s not as easy as ‘Yes, they work,’ or
‘No, they don’t work,’ she said. “There’s
a lot of gray there.”
4 | JULY 12 — JULY25, 2013 | www.ReporterNewspapers.net
DUN