Memorandum from Mary Kay Murphy
Mary Kay Murphy, Ph.D. District 3  School Board Member

May 21, 2003

Seeking the Common Ground

   Named for Revolutionary War Leader Button Gwinnett-no stranger to controversy-the Gwinnett County Public Schools have inevitably faced controversy in their meteoric rise to become the largest school system in Georgia-and one of the 25 largest school systems in the nation.
   In the seven years that I have served as a member of the Gwinnett County School Board, we have faced controversies large and small, from school bus routes to testing and accountability Through all of these controversies, community members have been indispensable in helping find a common ground that most, if not all, could embrace. 
   Communicating with one another through face-to-face meetings has been a key part of finding solutions to these challenges, and is again key as we navigate issues surrounding student discipline reports to the Georgia Department of Education. 
   Unfortunately, our monthly Board meetings allow for little exchange between members of the School Board and the community. By school law and policy, we follow an agenda format that focuses on conducting Board business and not interaction with the community.
   On the other hand, Area Board Meetings bring us to high schools in Gwinnett County's five districts to hear what is on community members' hearts and minds regarding public education. These yearly Report Cards are meaningful ways to take the pulse of the community and to hear from those whose taxes help pay for classrooms, teacher salaries, textbooks, and facilities.
   In April and May, we held the 2003 Area Board Meetings at Grayson, Berkmar, Collins Hill, Brookwood, and Norcross High Schools. This year, as at previous Area Board meetings, community members took to the podium and microphone, and one by one brought their messages of support, concern, frustration, appreciation, reflection, insight, and innovation.
   At Grayson High School, for example, we heard from Mr. Dan Buchanan, a parent at Dacula Middle School, who described the innovative Safety Patrol that seventy other parents and he organized to provide a secure, safe, and crime free environment on the campus where temporary classrooms are located in row after row of trailers. 
   At Collins Hill High School, we heard from Mrs. Mindy Clark, Mrs. Carolyn Morton, and other parents and community members who oppose allowing children to attend Sycamore Elementary School when it is scheduled to open in August 2003. Their concerns relate to the school's location in North Gwinnett between two landfills. At Norcross High School, we heard from twenty-five community members, including Mr. Ruel Morrison, a career educator whose grandchildren attend Gwinnett County Public Schools. He urged us to stay the course in our work to educate all students. We heard from Mrs. Rosalfo Pena, incoming Vice President of the Norcross High School PTSA, who has a rising 9th grader from Pinckneyville Middle School and a rising 3rd grader at Stripling Elementary. She also serves as a translator and mentor to other Spanish-speaking parents.
   Mr. Wayne Knox applauded the public school environment where his daughter, Kristen Knox, a graduating senior, achieved a 1600 SAT score, STAR Student and valedictorian status, and nine scholarships to college, including offers from Harvard and Yale. Reverend Dean Head, a graduate of Norcross Elementary, Summerour Middle, and Norcross High Schools, spoke of his satisfaction with his family's decision to enroll their two daughters in the same Gwinnett schools he attended.
   Of the more than one hundred parents, teachers, community members, and students who spoke to us at the five Area Board meetings, nine out of ten found reason to praise and support public education in Gwinnett County. Others told us of our need to improve and change.
   For those who offered support, including the news media, we are deeply grateful. For those who disagree with us on one issue or another, we appreciate the opportunity to hear their views and to communicate openly and freely as we continue to seek common sense solutions to problems. Like the candle and the flame, both perspectives are necessary to bring light. 
   For us to achieve the common ground, we must hear all views about how we are doing with public education in Gwinnett County-the positive and the negative; the affirming and the dissenting; and joyous and the mournful. 
   During the two weeks of this year's Area Board meetings, the media captured public attention with reports that Gwinnett County Public Schools underreported by 85% incidents of student discipline during the 2001-02 school year.
   Because these matters are under investigation by the Georgia Department of Education, the Gwinnett County District Attorney's Office, and the Professional Standards Commission, I cannot comment at this time on legal aspects of the underreporting.
   But until we can make a complete public report, I want to assure the Gwinnett County community that nothing is more important to me than this community and the children who live here and go to school here. When I and other members were elected to the School Board, we were given the trust of this community to oversee the safety of students and teachers in our schools. I have worked hard every day to be deserving of this trust, and I will continue to do so. This is my commitment to this community. 
   Public education is a treasure, and we have one of the best examples of public education in the world right here in Gwinnett County. It is a system that has made us proud in the past, and will make us proud in the future.
   Working together, we can continue to give the remarkable children of our community the unparalleled education they deserve-and nothing less.

This is a revised article that appeared in The Gwinnett Daily Post May 18, 2003