Morehouse College Names New President:

Memo leaks new Morehouse president
Robert Franklin to succeed Walter Massey, who retires in June

By ANDREA JONES, JOHN BLAKE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/30/07

Robert Franklin, a Morehouse College alum who graduated from Harvard Divinity School, will become Morehouse College's 10th president, according to a internal memo distributed to alumni and staff at the school this weekend.

Franklin will succeed President Walter Massey, who will retire in June.

Robert Franklin

Franklin is a professor of social ethics at Emory University and a well-known author and commentator for National Public Radio. He recently completed a book on what he calls a crisis of mission in black colleges.

In the book, "Crisis in the Village," he said many black colleges are no longer training students to become community leaders and are instead simply supplying talent to the marketplace.

A 1975 Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Morehouse College, he also hold a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago Divinity School.

Birmingham Principal Has 7 Year Old "Sign Suspension:

Thursday, April 05, 2007, Birmingham, Alabama

 - A 7-year-old boy and 9-year-old girl were suspended indefinitely from Hudson Elementary School this week after finding marijuana behind the school and distributing it to classmates, according to a suspension report filed by the principal. The report lists the incident as a Class III offense, meaning the students must have a hearing before being reinstated to school. The students' hearings have not been scheduled. Tamika Roberts, mother of the 7-year-old, said she's outraged that her first-grade son had to sign the suspension report without her present.  "They had my son sign a document, and he's only in first grade," said Roberts, who was contacted about the incident on Friday, but wasn't there when her son was forced to sign the suspension report Monday. "There were several children that found the marijuana, and they said my son was passing it out to other kids. But they searched him and didn't find the marijuana." A police report was filed Friday afternoon, after the marijuana was found. The report states the boy found a small bag of marijuana behind a tree and gave it to the 9-year-old girl, who put it in her pocket. Students told the teacher what happened, the girl's pockets were searched and the marijuana was recovered, the report states.  Roberts said she believes her son was singled out because he is known at the schools as a "troublemaker." "He was just diagnosed with ADHD," she said. "They call me all the time telling me to come pick him up because they can't control him. Now they've finally got him out completely."  Regina Waller, spokeswoman for Birmingham city schools, said four children found the marijuana, but only the boy and girl were suspended because they possessed and distributed it. "Safety is our top priority with all our students," she said. "This is an isolated incident and we, along with the principal, are working to get this incident resolved." E-mail: mleech@bhamnews.com
© 2007 The Birmingham News. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

CFBS Note:  By law, school districts must hold due process disciplinary hearings for any "suspension" greater than 10 days.  Acccording to local lawyers, urnder Alabama law first graders cannont legally give "consent" to school suspensions.

 

 

 

 

 

**Covington County's Florala High School operates with only 162 students in the school building, in all four grades (9-12).  How can Covington with less than 3,500 students in the entire school district afford to operate such a small high school? 

 

By using the Alabama Education Trust Fund's Foundation Program "Grade Divisor" formula, funded by the legislature each year.  Birmingham's board of education can lower pupil-teacher class sizes by using state funds, without using its own money.  It's real!  They do it in Florala, Alabama.  We can do it in Birmingham too.  Read the Alabama State Department of Educations' publication:  "AGuide toAllocations2007"

 

Here's How Alabama Pays for Teachers in Every School with a Minimum of only 140 Students Enrolled –

"AGuidetoAllocations2007

http://www.alsde.edu/html/sections/documents.asp?section=68&sort=5&footer=sections

 

Why close our "small schools" with twice, or three times the number of students in Florala High School?  The state is not trying to close Florala High as being too small or too costly to continue to operate.  Should the state close Birmingham's small neighborhood schools and leave Florala's tiny school open?  Fair is Fair!  We demand equal protection of the law!  "We dare defend our rights," Alabama!

 

 

 

Phone: Alabama State Department of Education - - (334) 242-9914 Tell them we want the Florala plan too!

 

MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA

 

Informed sources report Birmingham superintendent Stan Mims has been given, after Citizens for Better Schools met with Alabama State Department of Education chief finance officer Craig Pouncey, counter instructions to close only four "small schools to reduce deficits in Birmingham City Schools.  Mim's administrative staff, headed by Birmingham chief operating office Ken Wasmund, and its construction manager, Volkert & Associates had proposed to close 14 elementary schools in Birmingham as part of a cost cutting scheme.

 

Citizens for Better Schools has learned that the Pouncey school closing scheme may include as many as four "small schools."  Pouncey met last week with Mims and school board president Carolyn Cobb in Birmingham.  Pouncey told Mims the school district would have to do the following to dry up the red ink in the school district's budget:

 

1.    Close 4 small schools (not known; down 10 schools from Volkert-Wasmund's original 14 schools to close)

2    Fire 350 teachers and Support Personnel

3.   Fire 50 Central Office Personnel (26 fewer than the Shiver Staffing Audit recommnded)

4.    Eliminate Assistant Principals except 20 paid local fund units for high schools

5.    Control Utility Costs in Schools (Good Luck!)

6.    Eliminate after school use of school buildings (What about Community Schools, Extra   curricula Activities, community organizations use of school facilities?)

7    Curtail travel (except where fed or grant paid)

8    Limit hiring consultants

9   Control legal fees (Good Luck)

10 Another "employee buy out" from sale of the Lane and Davis Center, costing taxpayers $2-3 million for folk to go home (some of whom messed the ssytem up).