Gwinnett doesn’t win ‘Nobel Prize,’ but still gets bundle
Gwinnett did not snag the Nobel Prize of education awards minutes ago.
The $1,000,000 top prize went to the Aldine, Texas, district.
But Gwinnett still wins $250,000 for college scholarships for its students.
The Broad Foundation said it named the district and its superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks one of five finalists for its prestigious award for these reasons:
• Outperforming other districts in Georgia that serve students with similar income levels in reading and math at all school levels (elementary, middle and high school).
• Raising the participation rates for African-American and Hispanic students taking the SAT, ACT, and Advanced Placement exams, as average ACT scores for Hispanic students.
• Narrowing the achievement gaps between both African-American and Hispanic students and white students in reading and math in elementary and middle school.
I would agree with posters that Wilbanks is autocratic. (The district once sent school resource officers to the house of an AJC reporter who wrote Gateway-related columns. And the newspaper has rumbled with the school board over its penchant for ducking behind closed doors when it ought to be meeting in the open. )
However, Wilbanks is accomplished at hiring and retaining good principals. I have seen that firsthand at many of the Gwinnett schools I’ve visited over the years. If he believes employees are competent, he seems to allow them to run their own show.
His fans contend that Wilbanks has had to keep a strong hand to manage the county’s rapid growth and its dramatic change from a semi-rural district to a suburban one and now to an urban one.
I think it is fair to say that Wilbanks is both an autocrat and a visionary. The selection of Gwinnett as a finalist acknowledged the latter and ignored the former.
What do you think?
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Guides
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2009 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
36 comments Add your comment
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
12:25 pm
Wasn’t it pretty much established yesterday that being a finalist for this award doesn’t necessarily legitimize a school system’s performance?
Larry
September 16th, 2009
12:36 pm
NO, MAM we did not.
Why don’t you get another hobby, like building model ships, instead of insulting school kids for making an extraordinary effort to do something worthwhile?
Knows Better
September 16th, 2009
12:42 pm
I have seen first hand how data are manipulated in GCPS. Grades are changed at the last minute to allow students to graduate when they failed courses. Course grades are inflated to keep kids eligible for HOPE. Objective assessments are throw out the window in favor of subjective assessments by teachers. JAW is the emperor.
Teach
September 16th, 2009
12:42 pm
I think you have a misplaced modifier in your opening statement:
“The Broad Foundation said it named the district and its CONTROVERSIAL superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks one of five finalists for its prestigious award for these reasons:”
I sincerely doubt the Broad Foundation “said” controversial. Now is he? Most definitely.
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
12:45 pm
Larry,
Please cite a statement I made that specifically insulted Gwinnett County school children in reference to this award? While you’re searching, which will take an exceedingly long time since you can’t find any, I’ll refer you to the post I made yesterday about the intrinsic motivation of some DeKalb students, and how it can be nurtured and encouraged.
Once you are though with your futile exercise in trying to find where I insulted children, come on here and explain why we shouldn’t question an award given to a school system, Houston, that admitted to falsifying data, and naming as a finalist another school system, Gwinnett, that has admitted to falsifying data?
If a good portion of the award is based on data, and the award has honored systems that have admitted to lying about data, then tell us Larry, why we shouldn’t have any questions whatsoever about the significance of the award?
Maureen Downey
September 16th, 2009
12:53 pm
Good point. The “controversial” is gone.
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
1:10 pm
I’ll throw this question out there for anybody who wants to answer it.
If an award is largely based on data, and it has honored, either as finalists or winners, two school systems that have admitted to system wide falsification of data, why is it wrong to raise questions about the award, or what the award means as far as far as the education the students are getting?
Why is this not a legitimate question to ask?
Wilma Jean
September 16th, 2009
1:11 pm
Alvin keeps on tricking everyone. I am so disappointed in him. I knew him when…
OvenBaked
September 16th, 2009
1:35 pm
What bothers me the most is that many teachers have flocked to Gwinnett county not because they want to make a difference, but for the increase in pay. Gwinnett pays more than williwonka county 200 miles south. These individuals will keep their mouths shut and just teach toward the tests and not affect learning, critical thinking, and will not challenge administrative decisions that do nothing to advance the children.
Becky
September 16th, 2009
1:57 pm
So, I am guessing that since much data was falsefied, the award is worthless as far as saying that the GCSS is good? I don’t know. I’m not from there.
Maureen Downey
September 16th, 2009
2:08 pm
Becky, The data in question — I assume this is what the poster meant — reflected discipline reports to the state DOE. Here is the final AJC story about the probe. This ran in 2003:
Gwinnett officials won’t be charged
School discipline underreported
Gwinnett County District Attorney Danny Porter said Monday that there is “insufficient evidence” to pursue criminal charges against county school officials in connection with the underreporting of 44,000 disciplinary incidents to the state.
Porter’s decision brings a close to a criminal investigation launched in April to determine whether Gwinnett administrators intentionally made false statements on a state report. The district attorney examined Gwinnett’s student disciplinary data for the 2001-02 school year and interviewed parents and a school official before making his conclusion.
“Based on this investigation, I find that there is insufficient evidence to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that any person associated with the compiling and transmission of this data made a knowingly false statement regarding its content or accuracy, ” Porter said. The inquiry was the third investigation by a state or local entity in six months to find no wrongdoing by Gwinnett school officials in the underreporting of disciplinary incidents to the state.
“We expected the findings to be what they were, ” said Gwinnett schools Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks. “We have said all along this is about data quality. It was never about any intent to withhold or hide information.”
Gwinnett officials resubmitted corrected discipline figures to the state Department of Education in May. The school system also has had training sessions and altered computer programs to prevent future reporting errors, Wilbanks said.
The underreporting was discovered in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution-WSB investigation.
Last school year, the Gwinnett system told the state in a report that only 4,258 disciplinary incidents had occurred on its campuses in the 2001-02 school year. In the state-mandated rewrite, 48,501 disciplinary incidents were reported
Jennifer
September 16th, 2009
2:20 pm
MAM,
I think it is a legitimate question. Especially when there is such a strong and tight fist surrounding the data in Gwinnett County and the public has very little meaningful access to the real stuff. And that control is by district design and our autocrat who is way too concerned about our schools image in the eyes of the business and political community.
I hope they gave some good examples of Mr. Wilbanks visionary approach. Because lately between IE2, squirming out of school transfers, using tax payer money to file a lawsuit challenging a charter petition which was legitimate while he had two opportunities to recommend approval ….I don’t think these things are visionary acts in any positive sense of the word.
The IE2 contracts, a huge effort, are anything but visionary from a student centered perspective. For the African American, Hispanic and Student with Disabilities, the contracts have literally cemented low academic expectations into the ground for the next 5-10 years.
jim d
September 16th, 2009
2:32 pm
I’m speechless!
syd
September 16th, 2009
2:34 pm
JAW is Mr. Potter in its a wonderful life. The Alternative schools test scores are a joke and there is no accountability. His wasting of money on a testing mechanism (6 mil)that was eventually scrapped for the state one-as mandated by the state. His hissy fit over Ivy prep and it galls him that is the one entity he can’t get his hands on. I have seen Leadership (principal) incompetence across the board. There is a saying in Gwinnett. Old principals never die, they just move to the central office.
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
2:56 pm
And just out of curiosity, what did the AJC editorial board at the time say about this gross misstating of the data?
Or was the editorial board at the time still operating under the assumption that there’s “no data to support” the contention that discipline is an issue?
jim d
September 16th, 2009
2:58 pm
Mo,
This one still befuddles me.
under report 44,000 incidents and walk?
I’m not too certain those documents shouldn’t have been procured under open records just so we could see if alvin did sign off on the report. I’m no rocket scientist but i do know that most documents of this nature require a signature, affirming under penality of law for falsificaation.
Maureen Downey
September 16th, 2009
3:02 pm
MAM, This is what we said:
OUR OPINIONS: Gwinnett superintendent’s numbers game deceptive
Dek Head:
Byline / Source: / Staff,
Story: The leadership of the Gwinnett County school system has a history of suppressing dissent. Now it appears to be suppressing information as well. School officials have withheld thousands of serious disciplinary infractions from a state-mandated report, causing the county to look almost crime-free compared with other school districts.
The revelation fuels Gwinnett’s reputation as a police state where information is tightly controlled and where dissenting parents are intimidated by school security officers.
The blame falls directly on the arrogance of Superintendent J. Alvin Wilbanks and the complacency of the Gwinnett school board.
By many accounts a visionary educator, Wilbanks is also an autocratic and thin-skinned leader who stifles debate rather than encourages it.
The most damning example of his dictatorial style was his vendetta against parents and teachers who dared to question the Gateway Test, a high-stakes and flawed exam that Gwinnett introduced in 1999.
After a copy of the test was stolen, parents who had publicly criticized the test faced bullying interrogations by school officers. Wilbanks’ three-year crusade against teacher and Gateway critic James Hope ended only after a court ruled against the county. Too often, the superintendent’s message to parents and staff seems to be “you’re either with me or you’re against me.”
School board members have allowed Wilbanks to run roughshod over parents and have abdicated their responsibility to act as overseers. The board conspired in the deception on disciplinary problems by meeting in secret to review incident reports.
Those closed sessions constitute a blatant violation of the open meetings law.
To save their jobs and their credibility, Wilbanks and the school board have to move fast in declaring a new openness in Gwinnett County. On Monday, Wilbanks embarked on that process by taking responsibility for Gwinnett’s failure to report as many as 24,000 serious incidents to the state Department of Education last school year.
However, Wilbanks’ claim that the county’s gross underreporting was an unintentional error just doesn’t work. Gwinnett failed to report 260 incidents of vandalism, 109 weapon offenses, 46 sex-related offenses, 180 drug and alcohol offenses and 326 incidents involving serious threat or intimidation. The fact that school board members were given private briefings with the real numbers makes the official explanation particularly hard to swallow.
The deception, in other words, has not ceased.
The missing information would be vital for Gwinnett parents trying to judge the safety of their schools; it is also critical to enforcement of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which allows parents to transfer their kids out of persistently dangerous schools.
Because of the gross reporting discrepancies, Gwinnett ranked among the three school systems with the lowest discipline rates in the state, certainly sparing it any danger of being labeled dangerous. But the district is now stuck with an equally troubling label: deceptive and intimidating.
jim d
September 16th, 2009
3:07 pm
MAM,
Larry and I can both speak first hand on your question as we were there and know the young lady that actually brought this to the attention of the AJC–which actually did a jam up job on reporting the events and assisted in obtaining documentation via open records requests. They actually invested heavily in bringing this event to public disclosure.
One of the biggest thorns in the side of GCPS for a long time was an AJC reporter–Thanks Aileen
Georgia Charter Schools Association
September 16th, 2009
3:29 pm
The following is an official statement from Georgia Charter Schools Association Chief Executive Officer Tony Roberts, Ph.D.:
“While Gwinnett County Schools may deserve an “A” in many areas of their operations, they deserve an “F” for failing to offer school choice and charter schools to students and families. They deserve another “F” for attempting, by a lawsuit against the State of Georgia and its Charter School Commission, to close down a highly successful and diverse all-girls charter middle school in the county—Ivy Preparatory Academy.
“It is not just an oversight, but a conscious decision not to embrace charter schools as a viable tool for raising student achievement when the largest district in the state has authorized and supports only one other Independent Start-Up charter school (although that school is a great one!).
“One of the major criteria in determining the winner of the Broad Foundation Award is stated on its website as: “The reduction of achievement gaps between ethnic groups and between low-income and non-low-income students.” What better way could Gwinnett demonstrate its commitment to that objective than to embrace charter schools that are specifically targeting these groups like Ivy Preparatory Academy. We would hope that they would acknowledge the value of charter schools and embrace them in their strategic plans as is being done in the Atlanta Public Schools – a Broad Foundation Award finalist in 2002 – and Fulton County Schools.
“It is not enough for a school district to do a great job for the majority of its students! The real sign of success for a school district is how well it does the job of using every available means to close the achievement gap for ethnic groups and those having low incomes.
“So, congratulations to the Gwinnett School District and the other 2009 Broad finalists for this recognition! We hope that Gwinnett, its superintendent and school board now will go the second mile for all its students by embracing charter schools as an important part of the overall effort to improve public education in our country. We would like to see your “F’s” replaced with “A+’s.”
For more information about Ivy Preparatory Academy visit http://www.ivyprepacademy.org.
For more information about the Georgia Charter School Association visit http://www.gacharters.org.
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
3:30 pm
Maureen,
Good for you guys. I didn’t realize it had been addressed. And I mean that in all sincerity, as we need a free press to do its duty.
Now this begs the question, when APS was caught up in the same story, and reported zero discipline data for over 40 schools, and no less than Associate Superintendent Kathy Augustine suggested in your very own paper that the reason was “perhaps our reforms are working so well there are no discipline problems to report” did your editorial board take that statement to task as well for being deceptive? You do find that statement deceptive I assume?
Isn’t it fair to ask, if you didn’t let Alvin’s transgressions pass, how the editorial board, as a self proclaimed “watchdog” would let a statement so preposterous as “perhaps our reforms are working so well, there are no discipline problems to report” pass without a rebuke from the editorial board?
Thus, one would think, in the same way you held Gwinnett accountable, you held APS accountable. Especially since your agenda at the time wasn’t influenced in the least, not one bit, by entities such as the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, but was instead entirely focused on “what’s best for Georgia students”.
Since that was your stated agenda, I’m assuming I just missed the editorial, so could you repost it like you did the Gwinnett one?
Thanks
Jim
September 16th, 2009
3:34 pm
Syd,
I know for a fact that the scores of the Majority-Minority Alternative schools (GIVE EAST and WEST) were not used in this data or in any data for AYP. Those scores rank below Atlanta City Schools. Which is why they are hidden on a yearly basis.
Jennifer
September 16th, 2009
3:43 pm
Wow. I came in after the whole discipline stat scandal and never read the AJC editorial but was aware of the reporting issue that took place. I am very impressed by the clarity of the editorial words and find it hard to believe that so many years later nothing has changed, no school board changes, no cultural/community changes for openness.
It is clearly time to renegotiate our relationship with the business community, school system, superintendent, and elected board members.
Hall Co ghost
September 16th, 2009
3:47 pm
I just wish we could get someone to look at Gwinnett’s northen neighbor Hall County. We have illegal travel payments, a central office executive listed as a substitute teacher on state reports making 109 thousand a year and at risk kids being pushed out to the Alternative school to falsley improve high school graduation rates and a local newspaper that refuses to even look onto it even when given the evidence (publisher apparently goes to church with the school superintendent). We need an Aileen!
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
3:49 pm
jim d,
Though I did follow it up with another, ahem, “uncomfortable question” about whether or not the editorial board was just as consistent about addressing the reporting scandal in APS as they were in Gwinnett-and if you see the quote from the APS official you’ll see why there’s no way the editorial board should have let it pass-I did, as I always try to do, give credit where credit is due.
And when I ask a question and Maureen comes back with something to “shut me up” for lack of a better term, I don’t mind at all, especially if that means in some small, even infinitesimal way, the AJC has been prodded to be a better watchdog.
And as an aside jim d, I usually don’t have a problem with what the reporters say, although at times I do think they ignore certain angles. What disappoints me more is the editorial board choosing not to say certain things about certain people and how they seem to choose to ignore certain transgressions in one instance, but go to town on it in other instances.
I truly believe in the watchdog role of the free press, and that’s why I get very disappointed in the AJC at times, when it seems they abdicate that role for other agendas, such as acting like a de facto marketing arm for business interests in the city.
Maureen Downey
September 16th, 2009
3:53 pm
I think you were talking about the big story that Bridget wrote in 2006 about discrepancies in statewide discipline reports. Here is what I wrote in response. I think I have strained readers’ patience with these long postings of my old editorials, so I will stop after this one request. I have already heard from two people offline saying they don’t like such long postings and that people ought to e-mail me if they want me to send them long copies of something. Please do so.
Headline: Discipline statistics don’t add up
Story: Expecting schools to candidly report discipline statistics is a bit like asking kids to ‘fess up to how many Oreos they sneaked before dinner.
Neither wants to risk reproval, although with the kids there’s at least a trail of crumbs to follow. With school discipline reports, the truth is much harder to track.
The incentive to cheat on discipline reports is considerable, given the impact of a school being labeled as “persistently dangerous.” Under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, parents can transfer their students out of a school with a history of discipline problems.
Because states set their own standards for what constitutes a “persistently dangerous” school, very few of them are actually designated. Last year, only 36 of the nation’s more than 90,000 public schools received that label, including two in Georgia. Those two schools, Long Middle School in Atlanta and Murphey Middle School in Richmond County, are now coming off the list because they went a year without serious reported incidents.
In Georgia, a school earns the “persistently dangerous” stigma if it has at least one instance three years in a row of aggravated battery, aggravated child molestation, aggravated sexual battery, aggravated sodomy, armed robbery, arson, kidnapping, murder, rape or voluntary manslaughter. A school can also get the label if students are involved in drug and weapons offenses or terroristic threats.
While schools are supposed to document all vandalism, thefts, fights, drugs, knives and guns and suspensions, it’s unlikely they do, and there’s no way to know. The federal government did not give states the funds to routinely verify discipline data submitted by schools, so the Georgia Department of Education does not audit the data for accuracy or check for potential errors in all reports.
Otherwise, somebody at DOE would have caught the 392 incidents of arson reported at Pelham City Middle School, a 337-student campus south of Albany. Had DOE checked that extraordinary number, it would have found, as Atlanta Journal-Constitution reporter Bridget Gutierrez did, that the system did not have a single arson last year.
Surprisingly low numbers don’t merit a second look, either. South Atlanta High reported fewer than 20 disciplinary incidents per 100 students last school year, making it the third safest high school in the metro area. According to its information, none of its 1,100 students was caught stealing, carrying a knife or concealing a gun.
However, Atlanta Police Department records show that authorities were called to the campus at least 50 times, including multiple times for thefts, burglaries and weapons offenses. The Atlanta Public Schools has yet to explain the discrepancy between police records and its own discipline numbers.
Understandably, districts gripe about gathering discipline data that no one bothers to authenticate, particularly those systems that are committed to maintaining accurate and unvarnished data, such as DeKalb County.
As a result of its faithful documentation, DeKalb dominates the list of metro schools with the most offenses. In other words, DeKalb is a victim of its own honesty, a trait that doesn’t seem to afflict many other school systems.
— Maureen Downey, for the editorial board (mdowney@ajc.com)
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
4:00 pm
Maureen,
I just reread that editorial you posted. Four words: Awesome and hard hitting!
I just have one question. What happened? LOL What happened to that Maureen? What happened to the vim and vigor, the fire and the passion?
Can you get that Maureen out of mothballs, and go back and demand some accountability from Crawford Lewis? Can you get that Maureen to come out of mothballs, and pressure Kathy Cox to really dig deep as to just how bad the CRCT cheating scandal is, and just how high up it goes in the systems involved?
I’m going to suggest to you Maureen, to go find that incarnation of Maureen that did the editorial, as I actually believe that Maureen when she says her focus is on “what’s best for Georgia’s students”.
Maureen Downey
September 16th, 2009
4:07 pm
OK, this is my last comment. A few of you are very focused on the city of Atlanta, a system with 50,000 kids. Readers in Cobb and North Fulton and Gwinnett are not that interested and any metro-wide newspaper has to think carefully about how it uses it resources. This paper has taken a long hard look at many aspects of APS, including the E-rate scandal that led to changes in the federal law.
I have to say again that I have never been pulled off a story here or anywhere else because of “business interests.” Consider that it was AJC investigations that led to both the discipline report probe and the CRCT cheating review. Neither reflected well on the state and I doubt chambers were happy about such damning reports. But the idea that the chamber would ever come by and ask us not to do such stories and that we would comply is the stuff of somebody’s fantasy. I repeat: I have worked at four publications and never have been pulled off a story, and that includes working as a consumer reporter testing claims by companies and products. I often did stories that advertisers did not like.
The real factors in determining whether we will pursue an investigative series are: Is their documentation? Is the misconduct pervasive? Does it have real impact on schools and students?
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
4:08 pm
Well shut my mouth! And duct tape it too Maureen! I’ve been totally and completely, utterly and irrefutably refuted on that score, and I’ll be the first to admit it!
And I’ll admit it again for emphasis!!!
Now please, as you do this blog, please channel that Maureen! That Maureen, as seen in those two editorials, I truly believe is writing in the interests of “what’s best for Georgia students”.
I’ll will officially let this topic go back to the topic at hand, but I hope one day Maureen, you’ll address why you do focus much on discipline issues.
Hall Co ghost
September 16th, 2009
4:38 pm
Then come on up to Hall County!
Hall Co ghost
September 16th, 2009
4:43 pm
Is it because of Cagle and Deal that Hall always gets a pass? The documentation is out there. Most of it found in online public records.
dear teacher
September 16th, 2009
4:53 pm
Why are we so sure that Ivy Prep test scores are authentic. Maybe they need to be verified just like GCPS.
Jennifer
September 16th, 2009
6:05 pm
More than 500 volunteers, including Aldine ISD employees, business partners and parents, knocked on doors Saturday, Sept. 12, in a mammoth effort to find students who have dropped out of school. The annual event, Reach Out to Dropouts Walk Day, brought 26 former students back to five of the district’s seven high schools the same day. One of them was Patricia Hernandez.
This kind of a project turns a good school district into great. FYI – Adline is the district which won Broad Foundation 1,000,000.00
Joe
September 16th, 2009
6:41 pm
So would returning to an elected superintendent help get rid of some of these superintendents with complacent boards?
Dr. John Trotter
September 16th, 2009
9:43 pm
Maureen: It looks like that I have missed a good day on this thread! Yes, Joe, elected superintendents all the way! I have worked for appointed superintendents and elected superintendents. I have worked for Grand Jury-appointed school boards and elected school boards. Elected all the way! Now, in Georgia, all school boards are elected, and all superintendents are appointed. This arrangement was passed by the voters as an amendment to the Georgia Constitution in 1992. Big mistake. The appointed supes are too insulated, as evidenced by the likes of the arrogant school dictator, Alvin Wilbanks.
Maureen, you are so right. The AJC did blow the whistle in the media on the cheating on the CRCT and the disciplinary reports (or, lack of reports). But, I have to agree with MAM that it does appear that the AJC walks lightly around the Atlanta Public Schools. I have a letter with me now from an Atlanta teacher who is being pressured into changing her detailed testimony about cheating at one of the APS middle schools. We also received an email on the MACE email address from a Gwinnett teacher who is so frustrated because she cannot get any administrator to listen to her about her detailed explanation about the cheating going on at her school.
Maureen, when jobs are contingent on raising test scores, I can assure you that character-challenged administrators and teachers are going to be tempted to cheat…and some actually engage in it. Standardized testing is way over-blown in the public schooling process. The testing itself has become the curriculum, the false god of the public schooling process. I hope that the legislators and policy-makers will soon realize the futility of this testing idolatry and abandon it, but I fear that it will last for a few more decades.
Yes, jim d, Ms. Dodd does a good job for the AJC reporting on the Gwinnett County School System. I find her to ge most gracious when interacting with her. She appears to have a great deal of zeal in addressing the pertinent issues in Gwinnett County.
Maureen, don’t apologize or even hesitate in posting old editorials, etc. It’s just cyber space. No costs. Hey, if someone doesn’t like the length, they can use the ole mouse and scroll down the page. I tend to like the historical perspective.
Maureen's accountability metric
September 16th, 2009
10:50 pm
Maureen, I see I’m not the only one with concerns about how the AJC bias affects its coverage.
Here’s another quote; bonus points if you can recognize who it is.
“But many more believe that our editorial pages are too liberal and that bias seeps into our news coverage. We have heard you on the bias issue and are taking deliberate steps to address this. On the news pages, we have several editors who are assigned to look for bias and balance issues in stories and headlines. This has led to fairer coverage…”
And this is from? You guessed it, Julia Wallace, the editor of your very own paper. And if she readily admits her changes have led to “fairer coverage” is it so very wrong to suggest that various agendas have influenced the AJC in the past?
Jonathan
September 17th, 2009
4:58 pm
Congratulations to Gwinnett.