Minutes - 20031111 - Laserfiche WebLink

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program, preferably in concert with Durham Technical College. --A single alternative school program for students in both districts. --A plan to allow students in each district to readily access courses and programs not available in their district but offered in the county's other school system. -- A plan to institute regular meetings between the superintendents and their respective staffs to examine areas of mutual educational interest and potential cooperation, including an annual report to the public on their progress at working together. --A joint early-childhood program. --An effort to expose parents in the CHCCS system to the features of the OCS year-round schools at Hillsborough Elementary and Stanback Middle School. --A strategy for promoting contacts between children in the respective school systems on an ongoing basis beyond athletics {pen pals, joint projects, etc.). Commissioner Jacobs said that part of this process has been educational and this proposal is to make some tangible, immediate steps and to do things that are within the Board's and the two school boards' control. Chair Brown said that her concern is education far our children and that this County is committed to making both systems great. She found the public hearings to be exceptional. She said that the County Commissioners have deliberated on this proposal very prudently and slowly and were considering how it will affect the education that is provided in both school systems. The County Commissioners know that these school programs that all people in Orange County pay for are not accessed by all of the children of Orange County; and what may be available in one system, may not be available in another. She wants to focus on understanding what our school systems have and how all children in the County can use these programs. Her proposal is as follows. Proposal far consideration by the Orange County Board of Commissioners: This proposal investigates the equal access of all Orange Co. children to all available educational opportunities. The Commissioners should establish an Educational Excellence Task Force by the end of this year 2003. The Commissioners will ask former UNC systems' President William Friday, if he will chair the Task Force and ask Madeleine Grumet, former Dean of the UNC School of Education and currently UNC Professor of Education, to assist President Friday in the formation of this Task Force. Mission The Task Farce's mission would be to provide a review of both Orange County school systems (Orange County and Chapel Hill/Carrboro). It would investigate the educational resources available in both school systems, make recommendations for improvement and how these resources could become equally accessible to all Orange County students. The aim would be to preserve and enhance the superior quality of education that we now have.