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COMMENTARY
Independent school system
more challenging than cityhood
As we head into the New Year, the issue
that is at the forefront of many Dunwoody
residents’ minds is the action that SACS
took putting the entire DeKalb County
School System on probation, just one step
above loss of accreditation.
Loss of accreditation would be harmful,
not just to our children, but also to proper
ty values. That, coupled with the governor
removing six school board members has se
verely impacted confidence in the DeKalb
School system. So, what do we do?
One bold approach would be to form
an independent school system for Dun-
woody. This has been made as an official
request (unanimously passed by the City
Council) as a high priority issue for the
next legislative session. With that said, this
would require amending the state Consti
tution to allow another school system to
form, a process designed to be difficult.
Let me cover a little history on this.
In 1945, the Georgia Constitution was
amended to cap the number of school sys
tems in Georgia at 180. This was a move
by the then county-controlled General As
sembly to eliminate competing systems
statewide. Currently there are 159 coun
ty systems and 21 city school systems, like
Atlanta and Decatur, which were grandfa
thered in.
The process that we will have to go
through to get there is analogous to the
process that we went through to form the
city, but unlike cityhood, it is a constitu
tional issue and has to pass with superma
jorities in both the House of Represen
tatives (120 votes of 180 members) and
Senate (37 votes of 56 members), and
then must be voted on statewide as a refer
endum in a general election.
I have been asked by many residents
how long this could take and I want to re
flect realistic expectations to the commu
nity. The earliest that this could be on a
statewide ballot for a vote, if everything
goes perfectly, is November 2014.
How do we get started? The first thing
that your legislative team needs is a com
pleted feasibility study showing all of the fi
nancials. Dunwoody has funded the now
complete study.
At the end of the last session, I dropped
a bill (HR-486), and have had one hearing
TOM TAYLOR
GUEST COLUMN
on indepen
dent school
systems.
As with all
Constitution
al issues, we
had hearings
on it in year
one (2013)
of the bienni
al session and
could possi
bly vote on it
in 2014. If it
passed everything in the General Assem
bly, we would need to mobilize a state
wide marketing effort, because again, it
would be on every ballot in the state and
we would need to convince voters on the
other end of the state why Dunwoody
needs our own school system and why they
should vote for it.
The major pushback I heard in the Leg
islature was why not form a “charter clus
ter”? The DeKalb BOE recently denied
a charter to what was a meticulously pre
pared effort. Comments made by the su
perintendent at that hearing made it very
clear that under this administration, there
will be not charter clusters. I am now go
ing to push forward with the effort to form
our own municipal school system in the
Legislature — that being the only alterna
tive left to us.
I was at the “point of the spear” in the
legislative efforts that successfully got the
incorporation of Dunwoody done and lat
er on the transfer of the parks for $ 100 per
acre. We were fighting just DeKalb Coun
ty at that time. I expect a lot of other coun
ties to join them in opposing this legisla
tion fiercely.
This will be harder than cityhood to ac
complish, so I want to manage the expecta
tions for the community of the amount of
time, money and effort this will entail. The
Georgia General Assembly convenes on
Jan. 13. I invite you to access the Gener
al Assembly website during session to read
about current events and view live hearings
and to come down to observe and partici
pate in the legislative process in person.
Tom Taylor (R-Dunwoody) represents
District 79, GA House of Representatives.
‘Experts’ bolster one’s opinion
To the editor:
Recent comments [Dunwoody Re
porter, Nov. 15-28] regarding Dun
woody Mayor Mike Davis’ statement
about not trusting experts are disingen
uous at best. It is reasonably obvious
that the mayor is stating a well known
fact: one can always hire an expert to
bolster one’s opinion.
To make the case that the mayor
would never trust the advice of an ex
pert defies any sort of logic. Even Ray
Charles could see this.
LETTER TO
THE EDITOR
E-mail letters to
editor@reporternewspapers.net
Mr. Davis is simply stating that those
on the side wishing to block the dog
run relocation have hired an expert who
agreed with those paying his fee.
Jim Kelley
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