Monthly Archives: May 2017

2:00 PM – Work Session Agenda
5:30 PM – Public Budget Input Hearing
5:45 PM – Public Comment
7:00 PM –  Business Meeting Agenda

  FY2018 DCSD Proposed Budget
Tentative Budget\Revenue Projections FY2018
The proposed budget has increased over 20% in the last two years to $1.01 billion ($1.7 billion including capital outlay). DeKalb Schools for another year will not meet the required 65%  expenditures in the classroom as mandated by the state and will continue to exercise its SWSS waivers.
Over the course of this past year, DeKalb Schools has given school house employees a 5% raise and added 400 school house employees across the district. Governor Deal will increase QBE funding this coming year with the expectation that teachers will get a 2% raise. However, most of that is going to the state mandated Teacher Retirement System (TRS) increase and it doesn’t look like teachers will receive a raise this year.
Since the orginal FY2017 budget passed in July 2016, the FY2018 budget includes these increases to Curriculum and Instruction

• $10 million – Past January raise for school based employees of 2%
• $14 million – Mandated TRS increase
• $2 million – State health increase
• $5 million – Textbook increase
• $8 million – Special Ed (General Fund) increase

  Human Capital Report
DeKalb Schools is actively hiring teachers for the upcoming 2017-2018 school year. Over 350 posted teacher positions will need to be filled before the first day of school, Aug 7 2017.
  Illuminate Assessment Platform
In March, DeKalb Schools rolled out Phase I of their new curriculum. For $675,000 the school district would like to purchase the Illuminate Education Assessment Platform to administer standardized tests before and after each unit. In theory, the central office would like to more readily identify under performing students and teachers. I would like to see less testing. The board also expressed the desire for more insight into the over arching plan for academic services. This agenda item was tabled until the July meeting pending further discussion.
  Lead Higher Initiative
$270,000 will be spent across 11 schools in a partnership with Lead Higher – Equal Opportunity Schools (EOS) to convince more students to take AP courses or enroll in the IB program. The recent trend in education is to reward districts that have increases in AP test takers. I’m concerned about the quality of many of these AP courses. There is an EPIC FAILURE in South DeKalb where 6 high schools have a less than 10% pass rate on their AP exams.
  Five-Year Local Facilities Plan
In accordance with Georgia law (20-2-260), in order for a local school district to be eligible to participate in Georgia’s Capital Outlay Program, the District is required to develop and maintain a five-year local facilities plan.  The board approved the DCSD Five-Year Local Facility Plan. It is noteworthy that the Guideline for Educational Facility Construction indicates that the Ga DOE doesn’t expect school districts to follow their 5 year plan.