A packed house greeted the organizers of CUEE, Community Unification for Educational Excellence, who held a kick off meeting Thursday night at the Rainwater Conference Center.

A diverse cross section of the community, including elected officials, teachers, school board members, parents and concerned citizens attended to learn more about the plan and how it will benefit the community.

Chairman Leroy Butler, Vice Chairman Rusty Griffin, and other members of the organizing committee all spoke to the changes unification will bring, particularly with economic development, quality of life, and the advantages that taking the best from both systems and combining them to make one community system would bring.

Committee member Tom Kurrie, who co-chairs the public relations committee with Ruth Council, said that city residents should sign the petition “regardless of whether you are for or against it. Let’s get this on the ballot and decide it once and for all.”

Regardless of whether or not it passes, the emphasis will remain on educational reforms in both school systems.

Consultant Steve Sprigohzy, who has worked with a number of school system unification projects across the country, asked those in attendance to please put aside their pre-conceived ideas and think about the children.

“What is best for our children? That’s the only thing you need to think about when you are casting your vote for this. There is strength in being able to focus all your attention and resources in one place,” he said.

“Will it save money? Probably not. But it will allow for a smarter allocation of resources so that more money and focus is on the classroom.”

Walter Hobgood, chairman of the education committee, said the committee will have approximately 35 members from a cross section of both school systems and will include board members, teachers and administrators, along with community members from Valdosta State University, the media, and parents. The committee will come together to formulate plans for education reforms with the goal of improving and accelerating student achievement.

The education committee will be working over the next several months formulating the plans and presenting them to the school boards and a wide cross section of community organizations.

“Our students are simply not keeping pace with students in Georgia, the county or the world,” he said.

Attendees submitted questions which Butler read to the audience, allowing members of the committee to address them. Among the questions were:

Q: Can we improve the schools and still keep our own system?

A: (Griffin) Still possible but when you have one community undivided under one system, you are able to take it to the next level.

Q: Will unification change the Wildcat / Viking tradition?

A: (Griffin) No! There will be virtually no affect on the two football teams. The rivalry will still be there and they will still compete. High schools compete against each other in the same districts all the time.

Q: Are separate city and county school systems the norm?

A: (Johnny Ball) No, they are not the norm. We have 159 counties in Georgia and only 21 counties with separate city and county systems, which is only 13 percent of the school systems in the state.

Q: What happens after we vote yes?

A: (Kurrie) At first, nothing. The planning committee will help with the transition if asked, the county will prepare to take in the city, new districts will have to be drawn county wide and approved by the Department of Justice, and a new school board will have to be elected representing those districts, which will include both city and county.  It takes usually about 18 months, so hopefully everything would be in place by mid-2013.

Q: I’ve heard that for the first several years after consolidation, students perform horribly.

A: (Griffin) Unification is not a silver bullet. It doesn’t solve all the problems and won’t improve education on its own. Time and again, it’s been shown that systems who have intentional, thoughtful, community-wide involvement, however, fare very well.

( Sprigohzy) I can speak to what’s happened in the many systems I’ve studied and there is no data to suggest scores decline. In the first two to three years, they remain pretty much where they’re at, but by the fourth year, you start to see them rise and you start to see the achievement gap level out. The lower performing students rise.

Q: Will Bazemore-Hyder stadium be sold?

A: (Griffin) No!

Q: How does this affect city/ county government?

A: (Kurrie) It doesn’t. The school systems have no affect on the government. All the voters are doing is removing the city schools from the city’s charter.

Q: Will it decrease the drop out rate?

A: (Griffin) Yes, but unification alone won’t do it. You have to have the reforms in place.

The petition drive to get approximately 7,500 to 8,000 signatures of registered voters in the city of Valdosta will take place from May 8 to July 8, and the referendum, if the signatures are received, will be placed on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Additional meetings are planned and community involvement is encouraged.

Butler said, “I am very pleased with the turnout. I think it went very well. A lot of questions were posed which are demonstrative of the feedback we get from the community, so this gave us the opportunity to address the questions.”