Whitfield schools employees urge officials to keep focus

Published 2:47 am Wednesday, March 31, 2010

When Jill Ryerson became a teacher 16 years ago, she was labeled “rebellious” for allowing her students to eat lunch in their classroom.

“I got called into the principal’s office because that was illegal,” Ryerson said. “You weren’t allowed to take your lunch back to the classroom.”

Ryerson, now a teacher in Whitfield County Schools, said the philosophical changes the district has made over the last five years have allowed school to become fun again as teachers lead their own classrooms and students enjoy their classes. It’s a direction several members of the district’s System Design Team told Board of Education members they want to see continued under the next superintendent.

The Design Team is a committee of about 20 people in different kinds of positions from across the district. More than 200 people attended Tuesday’s meeting with the Design Team at the Career Academy, and nine team members spoke. Co-leader Eric White, a history teacher at the Whitfield Career Academy, said the team asked the school board to meet to listen to their ideas after learning superintendent Katie Brochu was leaving at this summer to work as a superintendent in Columbia, S.C.

Board members credit Brochu with leading the Whitfield school system in its mission to provide students and staff with “meaningful, challenging and engaging educational experiences,” a mission they say has helped raise test scores and graduation rates.

School board chairman Tim Trew confirmed the board informally interviewed the system’s assistant superintendents in a closed meeting recently. He said board members will meet again after spring break to decide how to proceed with the search.

He stressed that the school system is full of employees who will continue to do their jobs well even after Brochu leaves.

“We’ve had one piece of the puzzle removed,” Trew said. “The biggest part of the picture is there.”

Board member Thomas Barton said he wants the next superintendent to continue the “directional focus” of the school system that prides itself on project based learning, collaboration among schools and a focus on students.

“I think we’re at a point now where it’s going to be impossible to stop the direction that we’re headed,” he said. “We’ve come too far.”

Angela Hayes, a fifth-grade teacher at Cohutta Elementary School, said she hopes school board members will allow employees to continue to give input on hiring a new superintendent as they’ve done in the past. Hayes spoke on how the school system’s focus helps support staff like paraprofessionals and bus drivers reach their potential and become teachers in their own ways.

“I could tell with (the board members’) body language that they were taking it in,” Hayes said.