Morgan County High Schoolintroduces students to theme:“Struggle to Triumph”

PHOTOS BY KATHRYN SCHILIRO

Use the clues and following profiles to meet the county’s newest educators.

The children of Morgan County rubbed the sleep from their eyes early Wednesday morning, donned their bookbags and walked into a new classroom (or classrooms) to kick off the 2010-2011 school year.
There are new faces in all of the county's schools, and not just those of students. Meet this year's newest recruits to the Morgan County School System.

Heather Chamberlain

Heather Chamberlain will be teaching first grade at Morgan County Primary School beginning with the 2010-2011 school year.

A native of Tucker, Chamberlain graduated from Tucker High School in 1996. She received her Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education from Georgia Southern University in 2000, when she also married her high school sweetheart.

She taught first grade at Ficquett Elementary School in Newton County for two years. After leaving teaching briefly to become a stay-at-home mom – she and husband, Justin, have two children, McCall, 7, and Andrew Scott, 5 – Chamberlain picked back up two years ago, teaching Pre-K part-time at Madison Presbyterian Preschool.
Chamberlain began work on her Master's degree through Georgia Southern last summer.
"My mother taught for 40 years (and still substitutes in DeKalb County) and I always knew I wanted to teach," Chamberlain writes.

By Kathryn Schiliro
Managing Editor

Back when Georgia's fiscal year budget was still in the works, the state legislature was prepared to put the axe to the grades 1 and 2 CRCTs (Criterion Referenced Competency Tests) and the writing assessment for grades three and five.

The cost to the state – both of those tests are entirely state-funded – is more than $2.25 million, about $1.1 million for each of the tests. To put this in perspective, Georgia's total budget for FY2011 is more than $38.5 billion, and the state funds about $17.9 billion of that total; for this fiscal year, the state will spend more than $13.8 million of a total $27 million – the rest is kicked in by the feds – on testing.

However, Governor Sonny Perdue took his pen to those budgetary changes proposed by the legislature, and revived those tests for the 2010-2011 school year.

His reasoning for his line-item veto of cuts to the CRCTs? "CRCTs in grades ine and two ensure that students in those grades are meeting state standards and give parents confidence that their children are making adequate progress. CRCTs in grades one and two also help prepare students for the CRCT in grade three, the passage of which is required to move on to the fourth grade. It is unwise to eliminate the CRCT in grades one and two," according to a June 8 press release from the Office of the Governor.

And his line-item veto of cuts to the writing assessments? "Writing is one of the most fundamental skills a student must master in order to be prepared for later grades and ultimately to succeed in life. Failing to administer writing assessments in grades three and five will have a detrimental effect on students and could possibly lead to an inadequate amount of instruction in this fundamental skill," according to the same press release.

By Kathryn McBroom
Staff Writer

The Census Bureau is moving into its “quality assurance phase,” the second stage of its multipart calculation of the United State’s population.

During this phase, the bureau works to revisit data they have received, as well as follow up with households that have not submitted a response. There are three main stages within the second phase: coverage follow up, vacant delete check, and field verification.

“We have to go back and check ourselves to make sure that the data we collected in the production phase is accurate,” said John Lowery of the Census Bureau’s Athens office.

During coverage follow up, a selected number of homes will receive phone calls in order to clarify information that may have been deemed confusing.

Vacant delete checks make sure that any lots or homes that have been classified as unoccupied are in fact vacant.
Any home with an address that do not match the one the census bureau has on file may be visited by a census worker during the field verification stage.  

“Our QA folks are primarily there to make sure that the data we are collecting is accurate based upon the actual number of cases they have to communicate with,” said Lowery.

Lowery emphasized the importance of having correct census data as it will help in determining the “benefits” a community receives.

“The individual person’s information isn’t subject to any scrutiny, other than making sure that we got their information correct the first time,” said Lowery.

The majority of the 14 counties that the Athens office oversees, including Morgan, have done a “great job” when it comes to residents returning data to the Census Bureau. Some counties even had return rates over 80 percent.

Staff Reports

In Morgan County, the 2010-2011 school year starts on Wednesday, Aug. 4.
Be sure your student(s) are ready to start the new year – check out what they need to have in preparation for their first day of class.

Morgan County Primary School

("Suggested, but not required by school")

Kindergarten
Book bag with no wheels (full-size)
2 boxes Kleenex tissue
Spiral composition book (70 sheets or more, wide-rule)
Three-fold sleep mat (thin-size)
Box gallon-size Ziploc bags
Box quart-size Ziploc bags
Box baby wipes
Roll paper towels
Zippered pencil pouch
Girls: Bottle of Germ-X
Boys: Clorox wipes
Wish List: Expo II markers, Vis-a-vi markers, pack copier paper

First Grade

2 packages #2 wooden yellow pencils
Package of big erasers
2 boxes Kleenex tissue
Bottle of hand sanitizer
Box crayons (16- or 24-count)
2 glue sticks
Book bag with no wheels (full-size)
Box baby wipes / Clorox wipes
Box sandwich or gallon Ziploc bags
Pencil box
3 rolls paper towels
Three-ring binder pencil pouch
One 1 1/2-inch three-ring binder with tab dividers
Optional: Package Expo markers

Second Grade

2 packages wide-ruled paper
2 packages #2 yellow pencils
Pencil box or pouch
Box crayons (24-count)
2 boxes Kleenex tissue
Package dry erase markers
2 rolls paper towels
Book bag with no wheels (full-size)
One 1-inch or 1 1/2-inch three-ring binder or notebook
Bottle of hand sanitizer
Package Clorox wipes
Optional: Pair blunt-tip scissors, Ziploc bags (any size), erasers (large), box of Band-aids, bottle liquid soap