LANIER COUNTY — Lanier County School Board Chairman Phillip Connell is preparing for a lengthy and emotional school board meeting Monday night as the board addresses issues left in the wake of the recent SACS (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools) visit to the system.

Amid rumors that a group of citizens is planning to ask for his resignation, Connell is digging in and preparing to answer the allegations that are swirling around the small community, among them that the school system is in jeopardy of losing its accreditation and with it, HOPE scholarship and college eligibility for its students.

The SACS team issued a report on Sept. 17 stating that they will “take action on the recommendation to place the schools in Lanier County on probation for violation of the governance standard for accreditation at their next scheduled meeting.”

“We are not going to lose our accreditation. Since SACS was created in 1980, they’ve never pulled an accreditation for governing standards,” said Connell, adding that he has received that assurance from SACS Chief Executive Officer Mark Elgart. Connell further points out that the SACS recommendation for probation hasn’t been voted on yet, and won’t be until Oct. 18.

A letter sent to parents and staff on Oct. 7 by Superintendent Eloise Sorrell reinforces Connell’s statement: “no K-12 public school has ever lost their SACS accreditation to violation of any standard.”

In addition, both Sorrell’s letter and Connell’s comments include that, even if the Lanier system loses its SACS accreditation, the system will remain accredited by the GAC (Georgia Accrediting Commission). “Both (SACS and GAC) accrediting agencies arerecognized for students to attend Georgia colleges and universities,” Sorrell’s letter states.

Connell agreed to be interviewed by the Times this week despite having just been released from the hospital following surgery to re-attach the tips of three fingers he crushed in an accident at his business. Although still recovering, Connell said he wanted a chance to “clear the air and set the record straight.”

Before addressing the SACS visit and financial issues he wanted to discuss, Connell insisted on making the statement that “our classroom teachers do a wonderful job. They are the backbone and soul of the school,” and it’s his hope that anything currently happening between the board and the school administration won’t adversely affect the classroom.



SACS Visit

Connell said, according to the SACS team, “We broke our own policies, we didn’t break a law. I went off the school board in December of ’02 and the policies were changed and updated on Jan. 13, 2003.”

He cites as an example the graduation policy. Lanier High School students had been traditionally allowed to walk with their class in the graduation ceremony, even if they weren’t receiving a diploma. “Last year, they’d been allowed to walk without a diploma, so we go ahead and let them walk, but SACS says we broke our own policy by allowing them to. I want to eliminate that. I think if they meet all the state requirements for graduation, then they should walk, so I want to take that part out of the policy. And the minutes of the meeting where we decided to let them walk will reflect that it was a 5-0 vote — there was no division on the vote.”

As far as the SACS visit is concerned, Connell remains upset that the board was not shown the list of allegations prior to the team’s visit. “They (SACS) said they sent the list to the superintendent, and Eloise said she didn’t have them.”

As for the findings listed in the SACS team report, Connell said they are a “stretch of the truth.” He cites the notation that the board interfered by “sending a teacher from one school campus to another without going through the Superintendent and without notifying the principals involved,” which implies that a teacher had been reassigned.

Connell said he asked a teacher to go to the elementary school campus to supervise the unloading of several truckloads of bark on the playground after having no luck reaching either the superintendent or the school principal. “He was there for an hour,” said Connell.

Another notation in the SACS report states that the board interfered by giving instructions regarding bus routes. “After we found out that one of the bus drivers was stopping on her route, after picking up 7 or 8 children, to talk for 15 to 20 minutes to a friend, we suggested the driver be reassigned to another route.”

The report goes on at length for eight pages, and Connell offered an explanation of every example of policy violation cited, adding “I can assure you that those policies will be corrected before the review team comes back in April.”



Budget woes

Of a more pressing concern to Connell is the financial stability of the school system. “We will be bankrupt in five or six years if we continue like we are. We’re going $200,000 in the hole each year.”

Of the system’s $13 million budget, only about $2 million in funds are controlled by the school board, according to Connell. The remainder of the funds are controlled by state and federal mandates.

The budget crisis came to a head over the summer when the school system had to close for a short period before the students came back to school due to a lack of a budget. The board had to pass emergency spending resolutions to keep the system running.

Connell said it is “against state law to pass an unbalanced budget” and the eight drafts of the budget presented to the board by school administrators were so different from one another that it was a cause for alarm.

Connell’s example is, “Up until about version five, our fund equity balance is stated as $300,000 but on version six, it changes to $400,000. How do you all of a sudden find $100,000?”

The budgets show a wide fluctuation in several columns, including the revenue less expenditures, and Connell said necessary items were woefully unfunded. “How do you only budget $49,000 for insurance, knowing that our worker’s comp insurance premium alone is $116,000?”

Other areas of concern are salaries and the number of administrative positions. The state gives the school system recommendations on the number of positions needed and provides funds for salaries calculated by using a combination of years of experience and education. The school system pays a local supplement on top of that to attract higher quality teachers and administrators.

“The state only pays us $57,000 for a superintendent, based on her years of experience and education, but we’re paying her $116,000 and having to make up the difference,” said Connell.

The state also only recommends three secretaries, but the system has 11, and Connell objects to the way they are paid. “We have two secretaries, one who’s been there at least 20 years and the other I know has been there 27, and they’re making the same thing as someone with two years experience. That’s not right.”

Connell said no additional money was allocated in the budget to offset rising fuel costs, and no fuel contract is in place to minimize the impact. “They didn’t take the cheerleaders to a game recently because they didn’t have the money to pay for it.”

As for his role as chairman of the school board, Connell said he takes his duties very seriously. “It’s my job to see where the money is being spent and how it’s being spent, not the day to day running of the schools. I don’t take this lightly,” adding that if the financial issues aren’t resolved soon, “we’ll be bankrupt in a few years.”