“We spent a really tough year making some incredibly hard cuts”

The 2011-12 school year marks Superintendent Bryan Dorsey’s first full calendar year as Superintendent of Gilmer County Schools. Coming to the district last January, Dorsey brings with him numerous years of educational experience. Kathy Jones is the current chairperson of the Gilmer County Board of Education and Dorsey’s second-in-command. FYN recently had the opportunity to sit down and speak with Dorsey and Jones on an array of topics. However, most of the conversation had a reoccurring theme, the budget.

In the beginning of the interview, Chairperson Jones said that going into this year the board knew that it would need to cut the budget. Jones opined that the cuts were due, not only to a reduction in state funding, but also to what she called a “bad economy,” specifically a recessional economy. Jones did not mention cuts in federal funding, however, later Dorsey discussed the possibility of losing federal funding, perhaps, as soon as January through cuts in the Title I program, a portion of which includes the food program.

“We spent a really tough year making some incredibly hard cuts,”

Dorsey said. The superintendent compared budget cuts to dieting. He said that there is no such thing as an easy diet. The idea here is that any cuts the district made would be difficult ones. Dorsey explained that the goal was to make as many cuts in the budget as possible without changing the services to the students. The comment brings to mind some of these hard cuts, particularly those affecting student services.

The superintendent said that the closing of Oakland Elementary School in June saved the district approximately $2 million. This year, students who would have attended Oakland were redirected to Ellijay Elementary School, where the enrollment there on both campuses is close to 1200 students. The two seemed at ease in their chairs as they explained the savings of the move to the budget, but appeared uneasy when asked about the purchase of the old Ellijay Bank building. The board announced the purchase of the building at the August 9th meeting. In the interview, Jones reiterated that the board purchased the building because the current building is inadequate.

“People are confused,”

she explained, sitting forward in her chair, referring to the way the public perceive the purchase and money spent on the building. She said that the money for the school came from an Administrative Technology Fund. At the September 9th meeting, the board said that it paid $667,000 for the bank. According to the 2011 tax digest, though, the property was valued at $1.9 million. Also, on the closing documents of the bank purchase, the final price was $699,000. Dorsey, stammering a bit, explained that some of that price would be rebated or credited back, although the documents included the final settlement statement. The superintendent explained that the money came from a G.O. bond that the citizens voted for and that the money in that bond can only be used to build, purchase or construct facilities. This is why the money could not be used for things like, teacher salaries or food lunch programs. Funds used for the bank building were under a justification titled, “Administrative Technology Offices.” Conversely, though, Jones said that before the board considered purchasing a new facility, it priced the cost of repairs to the existing structure “to make it workable.” According to Jones, the construction cost was between 150 and $200,000.

During the interview, the superintendent also disclosed insight into his pedagogy. While lamenting the standardized assessments, and although he said,

“accountability is a very good component of what goes on in education,” that “there’s only so much you can measure with a little index card that has bubbles on it.” Dorsey said that through standardizations, “we’re measuring a fine line of rote knowledge and the problem with that is, is that it reduces the creativity for problem solvers.”

His comments, here, seem to suggest his preference for methodologies rooted in critical thinking, although he did not elaborate on reworking such a curriculum for the district.

At the end of the interview, Superintendent Dorsey appeared hopeful for things to come, while Chairperson Jones looked ahead to next year’s school board elections. Jones is up for reelection, in addition to board members Foster Macarthur, and Michael Parks.