About Dunwoody reporter. (Sandy Springs, GA) 20??-current | View Entire Issue (Nov. 29, 2013)
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. 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