PROACTIVE PARENT IN GEORGIA

Our group - Forsyth County Concerned Citizens is a group of parents, special ed and general ed, and classroom teachers (no educrats allowed). Our group speaks in front of our Local Board of Education to bring issues to a public forum. We also educate and support any parent or teacher having an issue in our local Forsyth School District. We believe that working locally and vocally can begin change. We also believe that an accountable, ethical school system only improves the quality of education. We believe education is the key to success for any student/teacher of any race, creed or ability. We educate parents and teachers about various complaint processes and we educate teachers about the organization MACE (theteachersadvocate.com)- which protects the classroom educator from unfair firing and harassment. We love MACE and we love our teachers.

I began this group one year ago after my son was assaulted on campus. What followed was unethical behavior by administration in an attempt to cover the incident up to protect the reputation of the school. I began to dig deeper and speak publicly about this issue and found I was far from alone. I discovered teachers were belittled, harassed and given orders. I hooked up with other parents who even had child abuse by school officials covered up. This sickened me. I also discovered tremendous waste and inefficiency at the upper crust of management. I personally call it a Cartel! But in order to bring spending and inefficiency in line we make no bones about exposing corruption. We do this through open records requests. We educate people on what is available in terms of school records, budgets, and finance in a school system through the Freedom of Information Act. You can glean much in terms of waste! We take our information and file complaints with various arms of the federal government. There are many complaint processes available to the average citizen. Office of Civil Rights, Office of Inspector General, Ethics Division, State Education Complaints. And I am sure I will discover more!

We know for sure we need Ombudsmen in school districts, we have none in Georgia.. And regarding the Education Department for Special Education, we also found there was a severe lag in services, waste, mismanagement of our most vulnerable students -- Special Education Students. Special Ed students' rights and those of Special Ed Teachers' rights go under the radar. No one is raising a red flag. And for our most vulnerable, we should! Special Ed Teachers and specialists get the least support from any school system. Very little money -- more money goes to the athletic teams. It’s all about money in Forsyth County Georgia.. Special Ed Teachers are even treated as less than equal than many of their peers, when they deserve the best. This is because the attitude from our superintendent is, "special education students don't matter anyway.” That's right; a superintendent was heard making this statement.

We blog, write opinion letters, have a very good relationship with our local press, speak in front of the Board of Education, ask for policy and practice change, do open records requests and file complaints when necessary. We encourage more people to do this. Doing these things make schools systems more accountable. Our goal is transparency from Forsyth Schools and eventually it will come. Another goal is encouragement of ethical behavior from all educators in our local school system. This can be done one county at a time, one locale at a time. For further information, contact Terry Baradine at www.ga-educationadvocates.org

THIS PARENT CAPTURES WHAT PARENTS NEED TO DO TO FORCE CHANGE IN OUR SCHOOLS. HER ABILITY TO WORK WITH TEACHERS MAKES HER JUST WANT EDUCRAT$ DETEST. BE SURE TO GO TO HER SITE AND CONTACT HER SO YOU CAN DO THE SAME IN YOUR AREA. NAPTA

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