City School Board hosts special called meeting

Feb. 4—Last Wednesday, the Thomasville City School Board of Education held a called meeting where they listened to community input and heard additional details regarding the proposed field house designs.

Getting up to speak, President of the NAACP Thomas County Branch Lucinda Brown addressed the school district's strategic values of equitable and inclusive learning and increased effective use of facilities, emphasizing the importance of providing an equal support of all students within the city, not just those of Scholars Academy.

"This school system means to build a new school that will include everyone, also, that will include Scholars Academy. When the city school does its reporting to the state, it does not report the Scholars Academy separately, all of those points, the grades, the levels, go in together," she said. "The Scholars Academy is not a private school, it is just a program. Our children should not feel inferior because the Scholars Academy's children are treated with respect, learning at higher levels, have higher expectations for them and they have everything they need."

Morris Arrington spoke during community input as well and said that he was disheartened by the recent rumors surrounding Superintendent Dr. Raymond Bryant Jr. and the lack of acknowledgement regarding the past financial difficulties of the school district before Bryant's tenure.

"As a former principal for this school system, I am shocked and disappointed at this witch hunt atmosphere which has permeated this system and community based on lies, allegations and misinformation and selective amnesia of a few board members and school officials about decisions made prior to Bryant's tenure," Arrington said. "At this point in the school year, we should focus on preparing students for the Georgia Milestones and let Dr. Bryant do his job."

Courtney Williams, a local parent, began her own statement to the board by acknowledging racial injustice and emphasizing the importance of working together for the sake of Thomasville's children.

"Let me start by acknowledging and lamenting that Thomasville and the wider world we live in has much work left to do with respect to racial injustice and that is critical work," Williams said. "When we, as a community, retreat to our corners of color, riding the waves of negative emotions, and treating one another disrespectfully with our thoughts and words, we will not make progress. Our children need us to work together and be examples of character and sincere listening, my children are better off when they learn alongside friends from all backgrounds."

Speaking on Bryant's prior plan for a year of accountability, Williams, whose husband, Austin Williams, previously spoke at the last regular board meeting, spoke on her current concerns regarding lack of communication and financial management, amongst other things.

"In light of the superintendent's plan for a year of accountability, I'm here to raise concerns regarding lack of communication, teacher morale, and financial management of the system," she said. "Unfortunately, since last week's meeting, I've seen no communications from the board office that addressed concerns regarding potential budget deficit, the reduction of AP courses, possible removal of principals or increase in classroom size. My husband's questions from last week have not been answered."

Williams asked the board about the one responsible for the school district's loss of $8 million due to delay in obtaining a bond, whether there was second floor renovations done with board authorization, and whether or not the Luminate curriculum purchase had been authorized under false understandings of it's supplemental nature.

Matt Marchant, Melvin Clark and Audrey R. Linder also participated in community input, with Marchant discussing a need for unity regarding security concerns in Thomasville City Schools and Clark and Linder further speaking on Bryant's efforts for the school district.

After community input, Leah Finklang, a project manager at Altman & Barrett Architects, addressed the details regarding the proposed design for the field house intended for the new school construction project.

Having met prior with coaches, she said that they had accommodated requirements set, but had forgone the inclusion of a meeting room in their current 5800 sq. ft. design for the new field house.

"It is very hard for many school systems to build large assembly square spaces, especially for meeting, or general meetings, because it's expensive and sits empty a significant portion of the time," Finklang said.

Adding the proposed meeting room to the 5800 sq. ft. design, Finklang said, would be a significant financial addition.

"This current floor plan, that you see on the screen, without the meeting room, is $1,800,000," she said. "If you were to choose to add the meeting room to it, it's an estimated add of $400,000."

Other concerns that Finklang addressed included the decrease in size from the 10,930 sq. ft. field house currently used by the school, which she said was due to more efficient designs in areas such as storage, which she said would still meet the needs of the current system, as well as staying conscientious of the budget.

"If you were to say to me to today, 'what would it cost for us to add the square footage back to make it be the exact same square footage of what you currently have,' you would need to increase your budget by $1,509,000, meaning your budget would have to go from a $1.8 million dollar building as you currently see it on the screen to a roughly $3.4 million dollar building," Finklang said. "And that is why you're not seeing us showing, publicly, a 10,000 sq. ft. plus building today as $3.4 million dollars is a significant budget increase to the football field house."

After Finklang's report, Superintendent Bryant spoke to the community during his superintendent's report regarding the truths and half-truths within the district and that he would be putting into action a number of short-term and long-term plans to answer the concerns of the community in the coming months.

"I want to take a minute to talk through some things that I think have been stated through some of our citizens and community, but I wanted to to approach this in a way in which I took the opportunity to address certain issues that have arisen and basically talk through things that are true, things that are maybe potentially half-true, but also, I want to talk about next steps," Bryant said. "My goal is to make sure that as we progress as a school district, it'll move us towards a common purpose and continue to move us in the right direction."

During his report, alongside detailing the improvements made to the system during his 18 months of superintendency, Bryant made it clear that there had been no decision made to reduce the number of AP classes within the school district and that he cared for academic excellence for all students within the district.

"No decision has been made to increase or decrease our AP offerings in this school district," Bryant said. "My role as superintendent is to make sure that all 2800 students have the opportunity to engage, where they can have that opportunity as it relates to higher education, but also in AP classes, dual enrollment."

After the superintendent's report, the school board entered into executive session before adjourning.