Newspaper Page Text
Forsyth
Vol. 95, No. 012
In-home tutoring OK’d for Title I third-graders
Certain students at three elementary schools will be eligible to participate in federally funded program
By Nicole Green
Staff Writer
The school system unveiled an in-home
tutoring program for third-graders in the Title
I program at last week’s meeting of the
Forsyth County Board of Education.
Chestatee, Cumming and Midway elemen
tary schools will offer additional in-home
instruction to Title I third-graders. Students
who receive free or reduced lunches qualify
for federal Title I funding through the No
Child Left Behind Act of 2001.
About 26 percent of Chestatee’s student
body qualifies for Title I funding, 28 percent
at Cumming and 29 percent at Midway. The
system average is 12 percent of 22,000 stu-
Tiny
Miracle
By Todd Truelove
Staff Writer
Conner Whitaker wasn’t supposed to have
his first Christmas in this world until
2004.
His mother, 26-year-old Christy Allison-
Whitaker, expected the child on March 17, but all
of that changed in the early morning hours of
Dec. 10 when she began having small stomach
aches.
She said she didn’t think much of it at the
time.
“I was only six months pregnant,” Whitaker
explained. She woke her mother after suspecting
her water broke.
“She [my mother] was pretty much dead to
the world when I woke her,” Whitaker said,
adding her mother said it was too early in the
pregnancy for her water to have broken.
So Whitaker went back to sleep and woke the
next morning to prepare for school. She said she
is a nursing student and attends Gainesville
College.
“By then, my stomach was hurting so bad,”
she said.
There was little doubt she was going into
labor. As she rushed to find the doctor’s phone
number, Whitaker said she went into “horrible
pain.”
“I felt him coming,” she said. “Luckily, I’m a
nursing student so I kind of knew halfway what
to do.”
She gave birth at home as her father called
emergency personnel, who arrived on the scene
shortly thereafter.
Lt. Dennis Smith of Fire Station 12 said they
were on the road heading toward Whitaker’s
Coal Mountain-area residence when word came
the baby had been delivered.
“They told us on the radio that the baby was
already out,” Smith said.
Firefighter Chris Stancel, who helped medics
prepare the infant for the trip to the hospital said
it was difficult to determine if the child would
live.
“We just did our job,” Stancel said. “That’s
something we train for.”
Whitaker worried her baby might not live
until he reached the hospital.
“They worked on Conner, cut the umbilical
cord and got him into the ambulance,” Whitaker
said. “I didn’t expect him to make it to the ambu
lance, let alone the hospital.”
The child weighed a mere 1 pound, 14
ounces, and was 13.5 inches long.
He and his mother were whisked to Northeast
Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville where
Whitaker said around 20 to 30 medical personnel
worked to save the newborn.
The prognosis wasn’t good.
“They told me that Conner wasn’t going to
make it,” she said.
See BABY, Page 2A
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dents, well below the state average of 45 per
cent.
Supplemental services such as tutoring are
required for low-income students attending
Title I schools that failed to meet state per
formance goals, called adequate yearly
progress (AYP), for three years.
“We are not required to provide supple
mental services in Forsyth County because we
didn’t have a school that missed AYP [ade
quate yearly progress] for three years. But we
do it because it is best for children,” Associate
Superintendent Ellen Cohan told the school
board on Thursday.
The program has received a tremendous
response. So far 80 percent of qualified stu
dents at Midway have signed up for tutoring,
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Christy Allison-Whitaker with Conner, who was born three months premature and
weighed less than 2 pounds.
INDEX
Abby 4A
Classifieds 8B
Deaths 2A
Education 5A
Horoscope 4A
Legals 2B
Opinion 8A
Sportslß
WEDNESDAY January 21,2004
Dear Abby
dishes out
gcxxl advice.
Page 4A
IVe are not required to
provide supplemental
services... but we do it
because it is best for
children. 99
said assistant principal Kristan Morse who
was present at the board meeting. The dead
line for response was Jan. 16.
School officials targeted third-graders
because this school year they will be held to
the Promotion/Retention Rule, part of the
state A-Plus Education Reform Act passed in
Columnist Bill Shipp
shares his perspective
of Georgia politics.
PageSA
2001. Students will not be promoted to the
fourth grade unless they pass the Criterion-
Referenced Competency Test (CRCT), show
ing they mastered skills and knowledge taught
in third grade.
The Promotion/Retention Rule will be
effective for fifth-graders in 2004-2005 and
eighth-graders in 2005-2006.
The new in-home tutoring program is
funded by carryover Title I funds from the
2002-2003 school year. School systems are
allowed to carry a maximum of 15 percent of
federal funding from year to year. Forsyth
County Schools reserved 13 percent of 2002-
2003 Title I funds, or $138,522, to pay for the
See TITLE I, Page 2A
Partly Cloudy
LAKE LANIER LEVELS
Date Level
Jan. 14 1068.37 ft
r A Jan. 15 1068.13 ft
. . . i Jan. 16 1068.04 ft
' Jan. 19 1068.01 ft
Full 1071.00 ft
High in the mid-40s. ’
Low in the high 20s.
f
SPORTS, IB
North Forsyth sweeps Central
Annual
civil rights
march is
peaceful
By Steven H. Pollak
Staff Writer
About 30 civil rights demonstra
tors descended on Cumming
Saturday to mark the birthday of
Martin Luther King Jr. and com
memorate the infamous
Brotherhood March of 1987 which
was led by the Rev. Hosea Williams.
Unlike previous years’ events,
this year’s event did not attract any
counter-demonstrations. In fact,
Maj. G.E. Sams of the Cumming
Police Department said Saturday’s
march proceeded without any
arrests or significant incidents.
“There were no problems what
soever,” he said.
Sams said the city of Cumming
issued a permit for the event to
Belinda Dennis on behalf of the
Rev. Hosea Williams Poor People
Church of Love in DeKalb County.
The same group organized simi
lar anniversary marches held in
Cumming the last two years.
And, as in those previous years,
the group planned on bringing 150
to 200 people but arrived with just a
few dozen men, women and chil
dren.
Dennis said several other Atlanta
organizations planned on participat
ing but canceled at the last moment.
Also, she said some participants
may have missed the bus to
Cumming because of a mix-up in
the group’s departure location.
The demonstrators left from the
Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn
Avenue in downtown Atlanta and
arrived at the Cumming Fairgrounds
at approximately 12:30 p.m. on
Saturday.
They marched north along
Castleberry Road to the Forsyth
County Courthouse where several
people gave speeches.
Afterward, the group went back
down Castleberry to the buses and
left at about 2 p.m.
The Cumming Police
Department placed nine officers on
duty to patrol Saturday’s event. In
addition, the Forsyth County
Sheriff’s Office provided three
mounted deputies to help provide
security.
Sams noted that the Georgia
State Patrol was standing by to
assist in case an unexpectedly large
crowd arrived for the event.
The additional officers cost the
City of Cumming some overtime
pay but Sams said “it was fractional
See MARCH, Page 2A