Report: What does Fernbank really do and for whom?
In 2005, the DeKalb school board appointed a blue ribbon task force to recommend the future direction of the Fernbank Science Center. The final report delivered to the district in 2006 apparently never led to any real action on anyone’s part.
The charge to the task force from then school chief Crawford Lewis was to “…review Fernbank’s programs, services and facilities along with the needs of all the stakeholders in our community…”
A year later, the task force reported back to the school board that it was stymied in its efforts and could not create that future blueprint. (For a strong view on keeping Fernbank open, read this post.)
Here is the summary letter from Sally Sears, who was chair of the executive committee of the Blue Ribbon Future of Fernbank Committee. As you read this letter, you get a better sense of why the DeKalb school board is now giving serious consideration to closing Fernbank.
Here is the summary letter:
This final report contains strong recommendations. The two dozen people who sat down to this job almost exactly a year ago share many of Fernbank’s admirable characteristics. They are thorough, committed, bright and questioning. Yet the job of defining the future of this wonderful place was complex. We did not succeed in creating a blueprint for its future. It frustrated many of us. We found:
•The Science Center critically needs attention, oversight and support from school administrators and the public.
•We struggle to find basic documents about the Science Center’s finances, lease agreements and teaching arrangements. The methods of record keeping and the records themselves seem opaque.
•The talent and dedication of the faculty is dimmed by conflicting missions and leadership.
We support several ideas better to align the Science Center with your goal of improving science education throughout Premier DeKalb County Schools. The immediate changes to polish the gem that is Fernbank include:
•A dramatic increase in the number of students offered the premiere class, Scientific Tools and Techniques, for school year 2006-2007, to demonstrate commitment to greater access and revamping middle school science teaching.
•Use technology in sharing terrific teaching through the system.
•Require mastery of science before promoting students.
The Subcommittee working on programming and instruction finds many nagging problems at Fernbank Science Center consistent with lack of funding, conflicting missions and oversight. Maintenance, the future of the forest, bus schedules, and poor follow-through from classroom teachers figure in the problems we found.
But perhaps most discouraging was our difficulty clarifying and evaluating what Fernbank Science Center actually does, and who its target populations are.
The remaining three subcommittees struggled with similar issues. They did not choose to create reports.
Sally Sears
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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84 comments Add your comment
Tabitha
May 29th, 2012
7:42 pm
Maybe FCS could offer subscription services to science classses and to school systems. You benefit, you pay. Lots of schools, public, private and home would benefit from FCS. Teachers might benefit from summer programs to update skills. Put a real board in place to decisively fix the issues of transparency and governance. Offer a vision of FCS as a showpiece of science education in metro Atlanta. DCSS can’t afford a luxury like Fernbank but let’s find out if metro Altanta can.
dekalbite
May 29th, 2012
8:02 pm
Look at the 2011 science scores for DeKalb:
Science % FAILED by Grade Level
3rd grade – 30.9%
4th grade – 33.6%
5th grade – 35.2%
6th grade – 42.2%
7th grade – 31.9%
8th grade – 49.9%
Almost half of our 8th graders do not know the most basic concepts in science. We have experienced a steep decline in science achievement.
Every metro area school system except Clayton County has better science achievement and none of them have a science center.
http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2011/06/in-comparing-standardized-test-scores.html
pierre
May 29th, 2012
8:15 pm
I think closing the FSC should go hand in hand with closing many of the magnet programs and special little pet projects that have proliferated in DCSS over the years. There is no county in the greater metro Atlanta area that comes close to having so many special interest/theme/magnet schools. We need to prune back the tree so it will grow back stronger, and that means pouring resources into the “failing” home schools so they can become functional. We can do that if we shut down all the magnet/ theme/whatever you want to call them schools. Lewis was criminally incompetent and also a shameless panderer. He would give any interest group that screamed loud enough what they wanted just to shut them up and not look too closely at the “criminal enterprise” he was running. Now we have far too many small schools and chronic under-enrollment at many large schools. What all the magnets etc. do is gut the home schools of many of their best students, teachers, and resources that could go to under-performing students. Eventually, those schools’ failures become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We have to make more choices available at the home schools by returning the magnet etc. resources back into them, and if magnet etc. parents don’t want their child to go to the home school, well they can suck it up and go private. With all these small magnet etc. schools, the county has created a parallel system of privilege for the noisy and the connected. Let’s make the home schools work.
catlady
May 29th, 2012
9:32 pm
Ms.Downey, Piggybacking on Teacher Reader’s 7:04, could the AJC give us a breakdown of the educational “shakers and movers” as to what degrees they hold from where, and their compensation (including EVERYTHING) Perhaps their years of classroom experience also? Not just supers, but asst. supers, and area supers and directors of…, down the line to just above principals? I would like to know how many of these folks hold suspicious degree “qualifications.”
I suspect that the public would be very interested in how many got their advanced degrees from the LMUs of the educational feeding chain.
d
May 29th, 2012
9:52 pm
Well it looks like Fernbank will cost me $35 a month – and I teach Social Studies.
Teacher Reader
May 29th, 2012
10:02 pm
If you live in DeKalb, it will cost you more. Sorry d.
d
May 29th, 2012
10:05 pm
Fernbank – off the table, eliminating the health insurance subsidy for the same amount, moved through…. I don’t mind the tax increase, I think the pain needs to be felt by all…. oh, 6 furlough days, when will I have time to actually prepare meaningful instruction? Looks like I will be having to find a second job just to make ends meet now. Can’t grade papers while I’m running a cash register at Home Depot very well can I? Comeon DCSD…. this is the definition of insanity.
dekalb teacher
May 29th, 2012
10:48 pm
More furlough days, more studenta in the class room. I would like to see one of the Board of Ed members come in and teach my class with 37 students. Fernbank is off the table yet the teachers are still paying the price. It is going to be a very rough school year next year. The parents need to be ready as I will not be doing extra work for their students since I will also have to get a part time job to make ends meet. If the admin at the county office really cared they would make some of the needed cuts at the top, get ride of the ineffective and repeat postions. why do we need to have 6 regional superintendents??? Why do they have 2 or more assistants?? The county curriculum coordinators do nothing but create extra paper work for the teachers, they also need to be gone. The people of the county need to vote the idiots out of the office and get over the fact that if you want a good education it will have to be paid for. DeKalb will see a mass exodus of teachers in the near future if the Board can not or will not fix the problems.
dekalbite
May 29th, 2012
10:55 pm
Fernbank is the most powerful group of parents in DeKalb County and really in the entire metro area. There is absolutely nothing they can’t get if they set their minds to it. They are smart, affluent and politically connected. They want Fernbank Science Center to stay just the way it is so they will protect it since it sounds good for their neighborhood to have the science center. They decided it needed to stay open 2 years ago and so it did. They were for redistricting and closing schools, but when they were in danger of being redistricted, they didn’t want that to happen for their own children, so it didn’t. They wanted a new school even though they had a new wing built with SPLOST III money so they put their influence into passing SPLOST IV, and lo and behold they are getting a brand new school. When some SPLOST IV projects were going to be delayed or deferred, they suddenly end up at the top of the list with their brand new school. Again Fernbank Science Center comes up for closure for excellent educational and financial reasons, and they manage to deflect that. Now they want taxes raised so the science center will be safe and that will no doubt happen as well. They know how to be part of the system in order to work the system. That’s just the way it is.
I guess those five Deisgners and one Cabinetmaker will easy now. Who needs teachers anyway?
Look at the Fernbank Designer salaries (they maintain the relatively few Fernbank exhibits) – from the 2011 state Salary and Travel audit:
Designer $77,381
Designer $63,360
Designer $84,073
Designer $65,827
Designer $69,178
Total: $359,819
With benefits – $431,782 for five Fernbank Designers.
Cabinetmaker $56,600 salary and benefits
Frustrated
May 29th, 2012
10:58 pm
Fernbank could be funded with grants. I fail to understand why this hasn’t been tried.
Public School Kid
May 29th, 2012
11:02 pm
I don’t know anything about Fernbank’s record-keeping or mission statements, but I do know that Scientific Tools & Techniques was by far the most challenging and inspiring learning experience of my ten years as a student in DeKalb County schools. It was also the best preparation I received for college. Let’s not freak out and give up a great thing that may just need a little leadership and nurturing.
dekalb teacher
May 29th, 2012
11:02 pm
@dekalbite It is sad that and insulting that the Cabinetmaker makes more than I do. I have a Master’s degree and 13 years with DeKalb.
Button D. Otherhand
May 29th, 2012
11:17 pm
Please, everyone, please! Let’s not turn this into another World of Sid & Marty Krofft!
gsmith
May 29th, 2012
11:23 pm
i am considering running for DBOE , after seeing the illititerate board members on T,.V this evening i could not believe my eyes… these board members looked like the homeless and spoke as if they never reached the level of the 2nd grade !!!! i am a white male and have a college degree does that make me way way way overqualified to sit on the education board in dekalb or any job in dekalb county all together????
DCSD Science Teacher
May 29th, 2012
11:25 pm
I’d vote for giving Fernbank Science Center staff one year to redesign their mission IF they were given a serious commitment by the Board and Administration for space (if they move programs out into schools); equipment (because there are, after all, only enough supplies for any class for the number of students who would presently take that class at FSC); and a mandate to make Professional Development (sharing methods and programs with other science teachers) a part of their mission. Even if FSC instructors moved out into classrooms, this wouldn’t be a drop in the bucket of DCSD’s incompetence in science instruction. Adding, say, 10 science teachers to teach in under-equipped labs, overcrowded classes, and nonsupportive teaching environments, won’t improve anything. Don’t trash a group of people who are dedicated and well-trained…just let THEM have a strong voice in redesigning what they do. Believe me, they have ideas about how to help science in this County return to a higher level. Just stop bickering and listen to them.
dekalbite@Frustrated
May 29th, 2012
11:26 pm
“Fernbank could be funded with grants. I fail to understand why this hasn’t been tried.”
Fernbank Science Center has NO incentive to seek “external support” as long as DCSS continues to fund it. They like things just the way they are.
What non profit is going to:
1. Fund on a teaching facility that employs as many highly paid non teaching admin and support personnel (28) as they do teachers (28)
2. Be willing to invest $2,000,000 in a rundown building that has severe facilities and technology needs
In addition, Fernbank Science Center lacks personnel with the grant writing expertise to facilitate this.
Teacher Reader
May 29th, 2012
11:40 pm
Parents in my neighborhood ask me why I homeschool, and this is exactly why. I would love to be able to send my children to the public schools. I am a product of the public school system and have taught only in pubic schools. I cannot have my child in such a large class with teachers who are asked to sacrifice time and time again. It makes me furious that my kids can’t attend the schools in the county, because they stink so.
Cuts need to be made. I realize that parents of children in these programs or those that have them in their neighborhood don’t want to see them go, but in reality these are programs, along with the bloated employees that we can no longer afford. What happens next year when we are further in debt? Will teachers be asked to pay for their job?
Being from a small school district from the North, having no access to AP classes of any sort, I look at the 57 people that I graduated with. We not only went to top notch schools (including Ivy League), but also have many in the math and science fields. Fancy does not mean better.
This tale of two educations would never fly up North. I went to a small school district, but there were much larger districts around us and even with multiple schools (elementary, middle, and high school) this inequity would not fly now and never has.
I am not sure what citizens of DeKalb are trying to do. Are we trying to have more communities break off and form their own town? Are we trying to see how poor we can make the education system be and how far into debt we can be?
Why aren’t we focused on providing a quality education for all and attracting the best teachers?
Tonight is a sad night in DeKalb. Bu
another comment
May 30th, 2012
2:18 am
The best school districts up North and in the midwest are small with one or two high schools. In fact a large school district has two high schools. The School Boards are elected volunteers with no pay. You can not have represenatives who represent the local community when you have school districts that have 50,000 let alone, 100,000 children. All the parent groups should model themselves after the “Fernbank Parents” but that type of involvement is not the culture of the minority communities. It is more than fustrating when the same 12 or less parents do everything on the PTA, supply all the money. They are ussually the “white educated parents”. If there kids are in a school that has turned minority, then their kids are the ones bullied for being smart. The only solution is to split up the School District by their feeder patterns at least. That way people get what they pay for. You can stop the bussing. If people want their kids to go to another school they can at least buy them a Marta fare card. No other county reimburses in cash for parents to transport their children from their home school. What did that get, no incentive to improve the home school, and alot of bragging about how they were making money driving their kids to a school near where they had to go to work anyways.
I would suggest Dekalb go to a 4 day school week. It is interesting that was not one of the choices. Since, that is working in several of the rural counties. All the kids that need remidiation could be dropped off or take marta to a remediation center on the 5th day to play catch up. But the rest of the schools and the busses could be shut down. Of course, the lunch would not be served on that day. They can pack a sandwich from the foodstamp purchases and bring it with them.
yes i am worried
May 30th, 2012
8:29 am
another comment,
bigoted a bit?
The Fernbank parents and what they do for their own children, at home and in their own school, are to be respected. How they behave on a county level is not. They put their children and their community’s needs above all else.
KIM
May 30th, 2012
8:49 am
My comment went to another line…sorry. Don’t know how that happend, Maureen. It seems to me that Fernbank could become a model STEM site with some retooling and all the prep for that: new mission statement, new vision, redefinition. But, it definitely needs to be saved. It is a respected place that with the right new focus could turn kids on to science and allow great growth. Save Fernbank.
@Kim
May 30th, 2012
8:55 am
“It seems to me that Fernbank could become a model STEM site with some retooling and all the prep for that: new mission statement, new vision, redefinition.”
Fernbank needs $2,000,000 in renovations and is not designed to be a STEM school. Have you ever visited a STEM school? It would be cheaper to tear it down and build a STEM school. I do not think the personnel at Fernbank would like that however. A number of the instructors are not certified teachers and the librarian ($90,000) is an uncertified employee as well therefore they would not be eligible to teach students in a school setting. On what pay scale they are employed is a reasonable question. One that won’t be asked though. Many live in the Fernbank area which only goes to show there are “friends and family” everywhere in Dekalb.
Atlanta Media Guy
May 30th, 2012
9:00 am
Folks here is a quote from Tom Bowen in this mornings AJC.
Tom Bowen introduced the proposal to increase taxes while cutting teachers and school days. He said, “the one mill increase SHOULD be rolled back by 2015.”
Then Tom write it into the proposal. Place a sunset on that one mill increase. I know you won’t but you will say you tried. Does anyone believe a Eugene Walker led (if he gets reelected) BOE will “ROLLBACK” the one mill increase in 2015? I’ve learned never to trust a Superintendent or a BOE that continue to balance budgets on the backs of teachers, students and taxpayers. The friends and family reaped huge benefits throughout the “recession” and now we’re paying dearly for poor leadership. The amazing thing about it? Most of the people that got us stuck in this ditch are still drawing checks from DCSS. Why?
When I see the people, who aided Clew through the most corrupt period in our school systems history start getting pink slips, then I might actually want to give them more money. However, just the mistakes under Tyson’s “interim” leadership cost us millions and could have cost us more until a Dunwoody State Senator Millar stepped in as the adult in the room and got the funds to DCSS.
The many mistakes made by the Clew/Tyson leadership, still in place after all that has happened, is the true tragedy. In the real world, people responsible for huge costly gaffes would have been fired long ago. At DCSS, the ones that make the biggest mistakes are usually celebrated and even given a raise. Why?
DCSS(D?) still an epic failure since 2004.
dekalbed
May 30th, 2012
9:37 am
So Fernbank stays and 150+ central office salaried positions stay (if we’re now looking at the elimination of 140 from the 330+ superfluous ones) and the super’s budget increases, the communications department increases, and the department of strategis management and accountabliity grows.
No one seemed to know how to run Fernbank. No one budgeted for interest and other expenditures. No one figured out how to use Title 1 funds at the beginning of the school year. No one knows exactly what the Heery Mitchell law suit will cost or do. No one proofed the erroneous contracts sent out in May.
Is accountability something that happens only in the classroom, when one teacher is responsible for differentiating instruction, providing remediation, tracking data, and calling parents for as many as 175 to 180 students (with the increase of one student per class)?
Still trying to understand why Dekalb isn’t creating partnerships with Georgia Tech and Emory for programs like the ones offered at Fernbank or working with Georgia State for professional development or using our own broadcasting students to record and produce Dekalb’s video messages. Also wondering why we employ so many “educators” (purported experts by their degrees and salaries) who have absolutely no interaction with students.
Dekalb Daddy
May 30th, 2012
10:54 am
Dunwoody Mom, Do you ever look after your kids or do you stay on the phone all day. Maybe nurture your children and they may have a passion for Science. My kids love science and cannot get enough. Be creative and constructive good qualities of a Mother.
catlady
May 30th, 2012
11:06 am
dekalbed makes many good points, especially on accountability. Why are only the teachers held accountable? Why is the CO so top-heavy? Why is there no one (with all these people employed there) taking care of Title 1, of the correct printing of contracts, etc?
I agree with an earlier poster. Anyone without direct instruction of students should have their job carefully scrutinized. Get rid of half, automatically. Start with those with sketchy degrees, and those with a family member in a higher position. Then, of the remaining, cut salary 20-40%. Those who resign, do not fill the place. (Teachers have to just make do if they get more responsibilities.) It seems to me that first and foremost, DCSS needs to restore RESPECT and CONFIDENCE in its work.
Next, look at scheduling in the schools. No one should be employed as a teacher with more than one planning period. Right now, too many are getting expanded leave to “manage” or to “find scholarships”. Get all schools on 6-7 periods a day, so that everyone is teaching 85% or more of the day. No more “group plannig times”.
Finally, put ALL employees (except bus drivers, lunch room ladies, and janitors) to work intervening with students who are behind. Too much time is lost in saying, “It isn’t my responsibility.” Make working with kids EVERYONE’S responsibility.
I taught for years under a principal who insisted on teaching a class every day. He taught 7th grade math. It kept him mindful of what was happening in the real world (the classroom) and he was the best principal I ever worked with!
@Teacher2
May 30th, 2012
8:58 pm
Please note that “Teacher2″ is already taken
It may be confusing to have two people posting under the same name.
KIM
May 30th, 2012
10:07 pm
Actually I have been to a STEM school and it can be done with out tearing down Fernbank.
Alphadog
May 31st, 2012
8:28 am
What a horribly written report/letter by Ms. Sears. “… Almost exactly a year ago. “?
Ole Guy
June 1st, 2012
2:08 pm
Well, call me silly, but my experience with this fine facility is…FERNBANK OPENS EYES, MINDS, AND IMAGINATIONS; it has probably “primed the mental pumps” of many.
This (so-called) Blue Ribbon Taskforce (whenever I see, hear or read that word blueribbon, I think of hogs; this is precisely what lies behind this “appointment” of a (clearing of throat) task force) is yet another means of “searching”…looking for yet more ways to save a few bucks…at the expense of WHAT? Do the easy stuff first: step on teachers’ heads, push em around like cattle, cut all the programs you wish…DON’T LOOK IN YOUR OWN MISERABLE BACK YARDS FOR WASTE, CORRUPTION, AND PLAIN OLE UNADULTERATED CRAP!
John
June 1st, 2012
8:23 pm
I’m going to guess that the reason for the decline is that many of the DeKalb students are the type who are more interested in voodoo and being hoodrich.
Eric Werner
June 2nd, 2012
12:49 am
I took the Scientific Tools & Techniques program in the 90s and it was wonderful. We learned more in our brief time at Fernbank Science Center than we ever learned in the DCSS classrooms. The classes were better than the science classes I went on to take at UGA. Most of the people who were in that program are very successful now.
Mike Langford
June 2nd, 2012
5:22 am
I could speak volumes about Fernbank Science Center. It is an absolute crown jewel of DeKalb County, and the impact it has made on my life and on the lives of many of my friends cannot be calculated.
I recall my first visit to the planetarium, exhibit hall, and forest with my eighth grade Physical Science class in 1967, the year Fernbank Science Center opened. When Apollo 11 headed toward the Moon, Fernbank’s Dr. Knappenberger caught national attention by following the spacecraft with a video intensifier mounted on the 36 inch telescope. As a result, NASA learned about the unique educational potentials of Fernbank. They then provided the key support to Fernbank to allow me and a hundred other high school students to execute a daring student project: full-scale real-time simulations of the last two Apollo spaceflights, achieved with an amazing array of contributions including a trucking company that carried an Apollo Command Module mock-up from Cape Canaveral to Fernbank, just for our project. Later that year, I took a National Science Foundation course in astronomy and meteorology at Fernbank, which led to lessons in operating the planetarium from Dr. Stahl and working with Dr. Williamon in the observatory, doing photometric observations of eclipsing binary stars. At a DeKalb County School Board meeting later that year, two of my fellow students and I spoke publicly to Mr. Jim Cherry and the Board and thanked them for the leadership that gave us these priceless educational opportunities. Later, when the first Moon rocks went on public display, I was immensely proud that Fernbank received the honor of being one of the first museums to exhibit a piece of another world.
Fernbank Science Center changed our lives, and it still has that transformational power. Don’t tell me it doesn’t.
Don’t tell me that science education is a meaningless luxury we can’t afford. The United States is extremely far behind dozens of other countries in Science and Math education. It is a crisis. We need more Science Centers like Fernbank across this nation, and we need the will and the wisdom to find a way to make it work.
GT Professor
June 2nd, 2012
11:14 am
I am a Professor at GT. A huge challenge in American science is to recruit more members of under-represented groups to careers in science, The US government spends large sums of money to improve this situation and achieves only very modest results. Fernbank Science Center sponsors the most successful programs that I have ever seen to hook these kids on science, to nurture their interest throughout their public school years, and to provide a long-term support and mentoring network. I believe that FSC should serve as a national model of science education for all kids, and especially members of under-represented groups in science.
An essential element of Fernbank’s success is to have a cadre of master teachers, who are real scientists, teach science by having the kids do real science.This sounds obvious, but in practice it is extremely difficult and expensive to implement. If Fernbank is closed, it would be almost impossible to recreate it.
John
June 2nd, 2012
11:28 pm
Mike Langford, white and asian students are not behind compared to the rest of the world. When you take out hispanics and blacks, we are actually in the top 5.
Source: http://www.asianweek.com/2008/12/24/odds-and-ends-alternative-energy-czar-2
“U.S. Asians are just as far ahead in Asia; that’s a two-year lead, despite attending American schools. On the international table, Asian Americans scored an average of 582 and trail only Hong Kong and Singapore, and they’re ahead of Taiwan and Japan. Euro Americans averaged 550 and beat the very same four European nations above the U.S. average, including England. Hispanic Americans averaged 505 and rivaled Austria and Sweden. Blacks equaled Norway, with an average score of 482, plus Ukraine and Georgia.”
So yes, we aren’t #1 and we can improve. But what we need to be focusing on is removing affirmative action that places people who are not competent into positions of authority.