Cherokee County Board of Education Chairman Mike Chapman is calling on Gov. Nathan Deal to veto House Bill 978, which would and draw out Chapman and vice chair Janet Read from their districts.
Despite and a , the , which has become a flashpoint in the fight for local control of the Cherokee school board.
According to the website of the Georgia General Assembly, the final vote was 47-0 for House Bill 978.
The bill awaits Deal's signature. If he signs it into law, the school board chair will be elected county-wide and school board members will be elected from the posts where they live.
"This is our last hope for avoiding a change in school board governance structure that may ultimately have an extremely negative impact on the overall quality of the school system and the education delivered to its nearly 40,000 students," Chapman said in a statement. "It’s disappointing that the past 14 years of successful governance by the School Board may possibly be destroyed due to a vendetta led by the Cherokee County Legislative Delegation."
For more of Chapman's letter to Deal, open the attached PDF or read the text below.
Stay tuned to Canton-Sixes Patch, Holly Springs-Hickory Flat Patch and Woodstock-Towne Lake Patch for updates.
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The Honorable Governor Nathan Deal,
This is to request that you veto House Bill 978, as this bill does not reflect the will of the people who will be impacted by it.
House Bill 978 is an effort by Cherokee County’s legislators to restructure the governance model of the School Board and reapportion its posts for political reasons. There is clear evidence of this, as well as of overwhelming community support to keep the governance model as is, and to use basic principles of reappointment to draw post lines…including the avoidance of redrawing two incumbents into the same post.
This bill threatens the past decade of success experienced by the Cherokee County School District, which has been achieved largely in part as a result of the current governance model, which prevented School Board members from putting their own post’s interests above those of the entire county. House Bill 978 also potentially jeopardizes our School District’s accreditation, which currently is at the highest level attainable by a school system, and is crucial for our students in their pursuit of higher education.
In addition to vetoing the bill, I respectfully ask you to urge the Cherokee County Delegation to adopt the map sent to them by the School Board. This map follows the basic principles of reappointment, offers a more even population split, keeps communities of interest such as neighborhoods and voting precincts intact, more closely parallels school attendance zones and doesn’t draw incumbents into the same post.
While I am currently chairman of the School Board, which is the fourth time I have been elected by my peers to a one-year term in this role during my decade on the School Board, I am making this request as an individual Board member. However, I will note that the School Board, at a public meeting last fall, unanimously adopted a Legislative Program that was presented to the Delegation. The first priority in that program was to maintain the current governance model.
Sincerely,
Mike Chapman
Chairman, Cherokee County Board of Education
Yes, years ago when I first came to Cherokee County, the "good ol' boy" network was in full force. Those days are long gone. Now the only puppet master I see is Chip Rogers.
Since you seem to be so certain that they're cherry picking the good stuff but keeping the not-so-good stuff on the down-low, can you please provide me with some facts that you're privvy to which shows CCSD is as bad as you claim them to be? Thanks in advance...
They won't even release educational information about their teachers. Why is that? They don't like articles about their student numbers being released. Why is that? They won't tell interested parents the class size/teacher ratio. Why is that? I think someone is afriad but it isn't teachers and parents who support CCSD. It's those that hide the truth and the facts.
Not that I expect you to answer this question but why do you Charter folks keep comparing things on a state-by-state basis? Georgia's place in education sucks...I stipulate (which means I agree with you). But we're not talking about Georgia, we're talking about Cherokee County. Again, I thank you in advance for pointing me in the direction of some valuable information that may have the potential to change my position. No offense but, if you can't do that, why don't you just stay off to the side while the big people talk?
In respect to SSOs and the siphoning of $50 million per year, over 20 years that's enough to pay for the I-575/I-75 corrider and more! Wake up people! It's time to get rid of Chip Rogers!