November 11, 2014 

• School Leadership Team (SLT) Work at Clairemont Elementary
• Recognition of the Teachers of the Year and Announcement of the District TOTY

• Decatur Housing Authority Request
• Budget Amendment
• Master Plan Decision for RMS and DHS

Please note that time for public comment is available near the beginning of each Board Meeting after the Spotlight.

Be sure to check out the Superintendent's Report- the sixth item on the agenda. This section is provided to inform the Board and the public about school district events and work conducted between Board meetings. It is helpful, up-to-date information on the inner workings of the school system. Superintendent Dr. Phyllis Edwards will highlight good news happening in the past month and provide updates on large scale projects.

The City Schools of Decatur Board of Education and the Decatur City Commission will meet together at City Hall on Wednesday, November 12 at 6:00 PM, to review of the draft Annexation Master Plan.

This public meeting held at City Hall will be available to view online through the streaming video service provided by the City of Decatur. You may tune in from home by following this link.

Last week, Dr. Edwards, Tom Sayre and Jeff Prine presented the City Schools of Decatur Enrollment Report and Annexation Feasibility Study to the Board of Education during the Worksession of November 5, 2014. You may download the presentation by following this link.

The Department of Exceptional Education is looking for community members to serve on a task force to study ways to increase our graduation rate for students with disabilities. This task force will meet several times this year to review data, identify root causes, and problem solve this important issue. Please email Heidi Whatley if you would like to serve on this task force.  

Heidi Whatley

Director of Exceptional Education and Pupil Services

hwhatley@csdecatur.net

Decatur High School's Top Dogs were honored in a ceremony for their outstanding effort and positive impact on classroom climate at DHS. Congratulations to all for making Decatur High School a better place to teach and learn!

Congratulations to Decatur High School's journalism staff who won scholastic journalism's highest award, the National Scholastic Press Association Pacemaker Award, for Carpe Diem on Saturday in Washington, D.C.! Additionally, Editor Meredith Broyles won first place for the national news story of the year. Exciting news for Decatur student media! 

For the second time in two years, a group of English learners visited Decatur as part of a German exchange program. These twenty-five freshmen and two teachers came from Johannes-Turmair Gymnasium in Straubing, Germany and took part in the program entitled "Culture, Commerce, and Cuisine", where they studied historical, cultural, economic, and culinary aspects of Georgia for two weeks. These young people lived with ninth-grade DHS German learners, and these same DHS students will live with their German host families when the Americans visit in June of 2015. Johannes-Turmair Gymnasium, a high-achieving foreign language and science-focused high school, is Decatur High School's partner school through a memorandum of understanding between Georgia and Bavaria. 

November 18 at 7:00 PM, DHS German teacher, Brent Eickhoff, will recruit for a third round of exchange students made of up current RMS 8th graders. These students will exchange in 2015-2016 and take German I while concurrently learning Spanish or French as Decatur High School ninth graders.