Building a Healthier and Happier Work Force

On Tuesday we celebrated the grand opening of the District's Employee Wellness Center, which was renovated and improved as guided by the District's Strategic Plan, also known as The Macon Miracle.

When I came to Bibb County, I was shocked to discover that we have one of the most obese communities in the nation. Wellness is something that is very important, and we need to take it seriously. As adults, we need to be role models for our students. We cannot just tell them that they need to exercise and eat healthier - we need to be the examples.

But if we want our employees to exercise and feel better mentally and physically because they are healthy, we must provide them with access to a facility that will help them to accomplish that goal. While the District's Employee Wellness Center, which is located at Hutchings Career Center, was acceptable in its former state, it did not provide much variety or inspiration for our employees who wanted to work out. So, one of the things we focused on this year was designing a state-of-the-art wellness facility where employees and their family members could go to feel better.

The redesign of this wellness facility would not have been possible without the support of Coach Eddie Ashley, the District's Athletic Director, who took the idea and the dream of a better facility for our employees, and ran with it. In redesigning the Wellness Center, he has added new treadmills and elliptical machines, free weights, and a jungle gym. He is even working to coordinate exercise classes for the employees who are interested.

What you will experience in the renovated Wellness Center is only the beginning. We want to have more sites across the county where our employees and family members can exercise so we can have not only a healthier work force but a healthier community.

I want to thank everyone who has been by to check out the redesigned facility, and I invite all employees and their family members who have not seen it yet to please stop by and learn for yourself what this facility now has to offer. I look forward to seeing you at the gym!

Building Collaborative Partnerships for Educational Improvement

I joined the Bibb County School District more than a year ago, and I began working immediately to engage the entire community in a Strategic Planning process to chart a new course for public education in Bibb County. Rather than setting the educational direction and goals using a small, core group of administrators, I invited parents, community and business leaders, politicians, faith-based representatives, and every employee to be a part of this Strategic Planning process.

More than 4,500 people attended each of the first two Strategic Planning sessions at the Macon Centreplex on September 19 and October 10, 2011. These sessions laid the foundation for the Bibb County School District's Strategic Plan, "The Macon Miracle," which I unveiled in February and which was approved by Board members in March. This Strategic Plan will guide the change and improvement needed in order to ensure all children receive a high-quality education that will prepare them to be competitive and successful in a global economy.

As we begin putting "The Macon Miracle" into action, I would like to extend an invitation to ministers and representatives from community groups to join me for a gathering to discuss the many ways churches and community organizations may work together with the District to ensure a better future for our children. It is vital that the District partner with the community to extend our efforts to prepare our students for a 21st century multi-ethnic global economy.

I will host two gatherings of community groups and organizations on Friday, May 18, at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. in the fourth floor Board Room of the administrative offices of the Bibb County School District, located at 484 Mulberry Street, Macon.

I will also host a gathering of church leadership on Saturday, May 19, at 10 a.m. at Central High School, 2155 Napier Avenue, Macon.

If you would like to attend one of these sessions, please RSVP to Kim Pelt in the Office of Communications at (478) 765-8548 or at kzwally@bibb.k12.ga.us by Friday, May 11.

I look forward to hearing from the community about how we can work together in unity for all of Bibb County's children.

Alternative Learning Sites to Provide Academic Rigor, Wrap-Around Services for Students

We have heard the concerns of our parents, teachers, and community regarding discipline within the District and are working to develop a Discipline Task Force that will review safety and discipline procedures in the District. This task force will begin meeting this month and will continue to meet throughout the next school year, and will report its findings and recommendations to me. In the meantime, we are also working to implement three local alternative learning centers for the 2012-2013 school year that will ensure not only the safety of staff and students throughout the District, but will also provide a safe, warm, and academically challenging environment for the students placed in these alternative learning centers.

There will be a high school, middle school, and elementary school alternative learning center. Data suggest that we have a greater need for the high school and middle school alternative learning environments, but we want to provide principals at the elementary level with an alternative place for students who may require wrap-around services and additional support. The three schools selected to house alternative learning centers - Barden Elementary, Bloomfield Middle, and Northeast High schools - were chosen because they are schools within our District that are currently under-enrolled and have additional space required to support an alternative learning environment.

For example, at Northeast High School we know that the Mark Smith building is not being used to its fullest potential. It is a building that is easy to modify because it is already separated or sectioned off and would easily support a separate entrance, keeping the school’s general education population apart from students in the alternative learning environment. This location will require minimum renovation to allow buses to drop off students in the alternative learning center on the other side of the Mark Smith building. This again would ensure that students attending the alternative learning center located at the school would never have contact with the students enrolled in the general education population there.

Bloomfield Middle School currently already houses an alternative learning environment in the form of the Ombudsman program. It has the capacity to hold an alternative learning center while requiring minimum renovation for additional classroom space. We will also have an opportunity for a separate entrance into this alternative learning site without disrupting the general student population.

Finally, Barden does not currently use all of its classrooms in one section of the building. It is our plan to renovate a number of rooms there, providing office space for the administration, and a dining area for the students. This school, too, will have the capacity for a separate entrance on a different side of the building in order to keep alternative and general population students from interacting with each other.

Soon, we are going to look for exceptional teachers and staff who will want to work at the alternative schools. The only difference in these facilities will be the additional wrap-around services to support students that are having difficulties. We are here to help our children, and offering these services is the most important piece of our alternative learning environments.

What excites me most about the development of three alternative learning centers is that I know students with social and emotional issues will not just be placed in front of a computer to play and not be taught. Instead, they will receive services that will help them become better citizens. Students placed in alternative learning environments should not be thought of as something lesser than; instead, their academic learning environment should be equal to that of regular students while providing them with the clinical help they may need. Students will learn in an environment that is just as rigorous and guarantees them that we stick to our important mission, which is strength of character and that all students are college ready. That should not be differentiated whether a student is in an alternative school or whether they are in a general education environment in our District.