An Update From GSCI

The Georgia School Council Institute was created in 2000 to assist with the implementation of school councils as required by the A+ Education Reform Act of 2000. GSCI’s mission was twofold: to provide consistent, quality training and resources to school councils as they fulfilled their statutory roles as advisors to principals, superintendents, and local boards of education; and to provide the public with a central place to find relevant, easy-to-understand information about public education.

GSCI’s award winning website, GeorgiaEducation.org, successfully provided a place for the public to access education information. GSCI also provided hands-on assistance throughout the initial 3-year implementation of school councils. The A+ Reform Act required that 540 school councils be created the first year (2001-2002), 1000 the second year (2002-2003), and exist at all schools (approximately 2000) the third year (2003-2004). In actuality, 1000 school councils were created the first year, 1600 existed the second year, and the remaining 400 came on board in the final year of implementation.

Since 2000, GSCI has created and disseminated over 35,000 training manuals to school council members. GSCI has trained over 10,000 school council members directly and almost 1000 school council trainers. GSCI hosted annual workshops at the local, regional and state level to offer training to school council members. GSCI sponsored an Effective Practices Study of successful Georgia schools to provide school councils definitive information to guide their work to increase student achievement. GSCI awarded $1000 grants to school councils that made a difference. All of GSCI’s work was accomplished with privately raised dollars – not one cent of state or federal money was ever spent on school council training.

GSCI has done all it can to ensure that school councils are off to as good a start as possible. Developing school councils to their full potential can happen only at the local level. Local boards of education are required by law to provide annual training to school council members. If state policymakers really believe in school councils, they must provide financial assistance and oversight to ensure that local boards of education are complying with the law and fulfilling both the spirit and intent of the law. The education community has always maintained that parent and community involvement is necessary to improve public education. It’s time to see if they really mean it.

The Georgia School Council GuideBook and training CD will continue to be available through the end of the 2005-2006 school year. Cathy Henson, founder of GSCI, will continue to oversee the GeorgiaEducation.org website. Angela Palm, Executive Director of GSCI, is going to the Georgia School Boards Association as Director of Policy.

Anatole France said, “To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” We continue to believe that together we can accomplish great things for the students of Georgia.