On Tuesday Charisse Davis, the new Cobb Board of Education member for Post 6, will hold what she’s calling an education discussion meeting with parents at Dickerson Middle School.
The informal meeting lasts from 7-8:30 p.m. and will take place in the auditorium at Dickerson (855 Woodlawn Drive).
Earlier this month, Davis was sworn in for a four-year term after she defeated incumbent Scott Sweeney to represent Post 6, which includes the Walton and Wheeler clusters.
Davis, who had never run for public office before, is a former teacher who is now a librarian in Fulton County. She also was nominated for chair and vice chair in last week’s school board officers’ elections.
Post 6 also includes part of the Campbell High School cluster, where she lives. Her two sons attend Cobb schools in that area.
She is one of two new board members in Cobb. The other is fellow Democrat Jaha Howard, who represents Campbell and Osborne. He also will be in attendance at the Dickerson meeting.
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Teachers from three East Cobb schools have been awarded grant money for lab ideas pitched at the Cobb County School District’s annual “Cobb Tank” competition.
A total of $71,00 in grant money was handed out to teachers at 10 schools in the district. They include Zakary Jezequel and Amy Morris at Hightower Trail Middle School (above, all photos submitted by CCSD), who will receive $6,595 to develop a project in which students will race toward a healthy lifestyle using spin bikes.
At Kell High School, English teacher Lauren Forbes’ grant of $1,600 is for an “Escape from the Ordinary Classroom” program, as her students will take a true literary escape in their studies.
Dickerson Middle School teacher Lawton Willingham is receiving a Cobb Tank grant worth nearly $11,000 for a music prototyping and programming program.
The program is modeled after the TV program “Shark Tank.” All recipients pitched their “Cobb Tank” ideas at CCSD headquarters. Per a CCSD release, here’s how the competition went:
Through lively, creative, and effective presentations, many involving their students, the teachers appealed beneath TV camera lights for the sharks to fund their ideas to enhance classroom instruction.
A panel of judges, or “sharks,” included several school district teachers and administrators, including assistant superintendent David Chiprany, a former principal at East Cobb Middle School and Wheeler High School, as well as business and community leaders.
A video presentation of the entire competition will be made available later this month on Cobb edTV, the school district’s cable access channel.
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CCRPI scores at Timber Ridge Elementary are up almost 18 points from 2015.
Seven East Cobb schools surpassed the maximum scores in the latest CCRPI test results released Thursday by the Cobb County School District.
The CCRPI—which stands for College and Career Ready Performance Index—is a state accountability measure that gauges overall achievement results and how schools are preparing students for the next level of education.
The CCRPI is formulated on a 100-point scale as follows:
Student progress totaling 40 percent (Milestones results from year to year);
The remaining 10 percent related to closing the achievement gap (between the 25 percent lowest-performing students in a school or district compared to all Georgia students).
At the elementary school level, Timber Ridge (100.5), Murdock and Sope Creek (100.3 each) led all of Cobb, earning what’s referred to as “challenge” points in such categories as improved results among subgroups of students and innovative measures at a school, the so-called Exceeding the Bar (ETB) score.
Three Cobb middle schools, all in East Cobb, also exceeded the 100 mark: Dickerson (103), Dodgen (101) and Hightower Trail (101.5).
At the high school level, Walton’s score of 101.1 led the county as well. The high school achievement score includes graduation rates.
Cobb’s overall CCRPI score of 82.9 was higher than the statewide average of 75. For the high-scoring schools in East Cobb, those results were among the best in Georgia.
Timber Ridge’s score of 100.5 not only was a gain of 5.8 percent from 2016, but it’s one of the highest in the state (Lake Windward, in north Fulton County, topped out at 104.5). Timber Ridge scored 47.1 on achievement, a perfect 40 in progress, and earned 3.4 challenge points.
In a statement, Jeffrey Castle, the Timber Ridge principal, attributed his school’s results to “a supportive parent community, engaged students and motivated, highly-capable teachers who have the education of the whole child as their main priority.
“Our focus last year was on progress, with implementation of computer-based reading intervention programs, and on intentional delivery of rigorous instruction and congruency among curriculum, assessments and instruction.”
All but two of the 21 East Cobb elementary schools had higher scores than 2016, but the drops by Kincaid and Sedalia Park were slight.
The biggest jump was at Powers Ferry, with a score of 72.3 representing a 14.5 percent increase from a year ago, the fourth largest boost among Cobb elementary schools.
Although the achievement score at Powers Ferry was 26 and its progress was at 37, the school reported a score of 8.3 (out of 10) in closing the achievement gap.
In a release, Cobb schools said that measuring year-to-year progress in 2017 is not exact because of some minor changes to how the CCRPI is formulated. At all levels, science and social studies were removed as indicators in the progress and achievement gap categories.
Elementary Schools
2017 Score
Change from 2016
All of Cobb ES
80.5
+4.8
Addison
93.0
+5.3
Bells Ferry
89.3
+7.5
Blackwell
86.2
+6.8
Brumby
67.8
+7.1
Davis
87.5
+2.4
East Side
96.3
+4.5
Eastvalley
93.5
+5.8
Garrison Mill
96.8
+1.5
Keheley
88.7
+2.6
Kincaid
89.9
-0.9
Mt. Bethel
96.4
+1.4
Mountain View
99.7
+7.8
Murdock
100.3
+6.2
Nicholson
88.5
+11.2
Powers Ferry
72.3
+14.5
Rocky Mount
97.4
+5.0
Sedalia Park
68.9
-0.1
Shallowford Falls
88.0
+1.0
Sope Creek
100.3
+6.1
Timber Ridge
100.5
+5.8
Tritt
96.8
+6.0
Middle Schools
2017 Score
Change from 2016
All of Cobb MS
82.0
+2.2
Daniell
77.9
-2.1
Dickerson
103.0
+4.3
Dodgen
101.0
+1.4
East Cobb
79.2
+3.6
Hightower Trail
100.5
+2.9
Mabry
91.3
0.0
McCleskey
82.5
-0.3
Simpson
89.9
+3.2
High Schools
2017 Score
Change from 2016
All of Cobb HS
87.3
-0.9
Kell
85.8
-6.4
Lassiter
99.9
0.7
Pope
92.9
-6.5
Sprayberry
86.7
-2.0
Walton
101.2
-1.2
Wheeler
90.3
+1.7
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In late September both Dickerson and Dodgen middle schools were named National Blue Ribbon Schoolsby the U.S. Department of Education.
Last week the Cobb Board of Education formally recognized the administrators and teachers at both schools.
Dickerson and Dodgen were among 342 schools nationwide earning the Blue Ribbon designation, and they’re among 17 East Cobb schools so named since the award began in the early 1980s.
In both group photos the school board members and Superintendent Chris Ragsdale are in the back row. The Dickerson staff, in the photo above: Dr. Carole Brink, principal; Sandra Alford, assistant principal; and teachersRebecca Johson, Tara Thieme, Jackie Roche, Jennifer Attard, Maureen McLaughlin, Megan Lankes, Natalie Cornwelland Drew Starnes.
In the photo below, the Dodgen staff in the front row: Dr. Loralee Hill, principal; Gary Jackson, assistant principal; Sheri Dennard, Teacher of the Year, 8th grade lead and math teacher; Marlo Sharp, French teacher; Tonia Martin-Gatlin, counselor; and Tricia Eoff, counseling office clerk.
Dickerson also was recognized by the school board for recently being named recipient of an Award of Excellence in Physical Education by the Georgia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.
Those recognized by the school board included Dickerson physical education teachersMaureen McLaughlin, Megan Lankes, Natalie Cornwell, Duane Perozzi and Drew Starnes.
A reminder that the Cobb school calendar for the 2018-20 academic years are slated for adoption tonight.
It’s the last item on the Cobb Board of Education’s regular meeting agenda. The meeting starts at 7 p.m. in the board room of the Cobb County School District Central Office, 514 Glover Street, Marietta. (here’s a link to the full agenda).
Earlier this month, the board discussed Superintendent Chris Ragsdale’s proposed calendars for the 2018-19 and 2019-2020 years, which would both start on Aug. 1 (previous East Cobb Newspost here).
While there hasn’t been the contentious reaction from school parents or on the board as in previous news, East Cobb school board member Scott Sweeney noted at the work session that he gets a lot of feedback from parents who want a later starting date.
Both proposed calendars have generally the same scheduled breaks—late September in the fall, mid-February in the winter and early April in the spring—as well as the usual Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year’s holiday breaks.
For the 2018-19 proposed calendar, the last day of school would be May 22, and for 2018-19, the final day would be May 20 (The full calendar proposals are attached at the bottom of this post).
Also tonight, the school board will formally recognize both Dickerson Middle School and Dodgen Middle School, which were recently named National Blue Ribbon Schools by the U.S. Department of Education (previous East Cobb Newspost here).
The board also will honor Dickerson, which was recently given an Award of Excellence in Physical Education by the Georgia Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation, and Dance.
The latest East Cobb recipients of the National Blue Ribbon Schools designation by the U.S. Department of Education are Dodgen and Dickerson middle schools.
The two feeder schools into Walton High School are among 342 schools nationwide and the only two schools in the Cobb County School District to be honored for 2017.
For Dickerson, it’s the second time it’s been named a Blue Ribbon School, which has been given out since 1982. Dodgen’s addition makes it 17 different East Cobb schools that have been so honored (see the list at the bottom of this post).
So what, exactly, is a Blue Ribbon School, and what does a school have to do be named? Like the other winners this year and in the past, Dodgen and Dickerson are “exemplary high performing schools,” as measured by overall academic performance, including test scores, closing achievement gaps in school subgroups and other factors.
The Blue Ribbon Schools summary sheet for Dodgen also details a high participation rate in music programs and the school’s 2016 designation as being the best in Georgia in the Scholastic Summer Reading Program.
Here’s Dodgen principal Dr. Loralee Hill, in comments provided by the CCSD:
“This recognition is the result of our vision to allow students to grow academically, cognitively, emotionally, and socially through service and leadership. Our teachers and staff are committed to providing our students with rigorous and challenging opportunities that will allow them to gain the knowledge and skills to be successful in their next phase of life. This honor truly belongs to everyone associated with Dodgen Middle School.”
At Dickerson, a school-wide Lead by Example program transcends academics to include social and emotional interactions and relationships between students, teachers and staff. Here’s principal Carol Brink’s reaction:
“The Blue Ribbon Award is truly an honor and a shared celebration both in our district and our school community. However, I must say that at the heart of this celebration is truly the focus and commitment of our students and teachers who lead by example by putting forth their very best every day!”
Both of the above links contain more information about Dodgen and Dickerson, including their application statements for the Blue Ribbon Schools designation, including demographics, special programs and more.
Here’s a longer roster of all the Blue Ribbon School winners from East Cobb:
2016: Mt. Bethel Elementary School;
2013: Tritt Elementary School;
2011: Timber Ridge Elementary School;
2009: Hightower Trail Middle School;
2008: Mabry Middle School;
2007: Walton High School;
2003: Dickerson Middle School;
2001: Shallowford Falls Elementary School;
2000: Lassiter High School;
1996: Sprayberry High School;
1994: Eastvalley Elementary School;
1992: McCleskey Middle School;
1990: East Cobb Middle School;
1988: Murdock Elementary School; Sope Creek Elementary School;
