Monday night the Haralson County Board of Education met for a work session to prepare their meeting agenda and hear updates from Haralson County Schools Superintendent Brett Stanton.

In his report, Stanton gave the board an update on the success of the Core Focus Walks being conducted throughout all six schools by various school principals and central office personnel. The Core Focus Walks are performed once a month at each school to evaluate the school as a whole.

“There are no individual evaluations,” Stanton said. “At the end of these brief visits, the team shares strengths and weaknesses they find with the principal and make recommendations.”

Central office staff also ask administrators at each school to perform awareness walks once a quarter to make sure the recommended changes are being implemented. Stanton said other school systems around the state have also implemented such walks and have reported success with the process.

The superintendant also gave the council an update on the school system’s Home Excursion Visits and said participants came back “with very positive reports.”

The purpose of the Home Excursion Visits is to identify at-risk students in the school system who are at risk of failing or not graduating on time and encourage them to continue striving for success. During the visits, groups made up of central office personnel, teachers, counselors and principals from the school the child attends make a personal visit to the child’s home to discuss the student’s future.

“Forty four children had the opportunity to hear that an adult [...] cared enough to take the time to go to their home and talk to them and know that we support them and care about them,” Stanton said. “It’s been a very positive experience for me.”

Students were also gifted with goody bags filled with school supplies and information about activities and programs available at their school.

Stanton also reported on the progress of the school system’s Strategic Work Aligned to Teaching and Learning (SWAT) Team visits being conducted at each school.

The goal of the SWAT team visits is to allow the superintendent and other central office staff to work with the School Leadership Teams to follow up on current School Improvement Plans to insure that they are being implemented and updated on a regular basis.

According to Executive Director of Teaching and Learning Pepper Moon, the visits were born out of an effort to align the individual School Improvement Plans with the System Strategic Plan. She says it will make it easier for schools to examine each section in their plan and determine where they are making progress as well as find areas where they need improvement.

“We will monitor the schools and their improvement plan every 45 days,” Stanton said. “The teams will meet with the principals and the School Leadership Teams to see where they are in their plan. It allows us to get a pulse on where they are with their SIP, but it also gives them the opportunity to check their own pulse.

In an update about the proposed changes to the school calendar, Stanton encouraged employees, parents and residents to visit the school’s Web site, www.haralson.k12.ga.us, and review the proposed options and provide the board with feedback.

“It’s very important to be open and honest about the calendar and considering an alternative calendar,” Stanton said.

The school system has posted a PowerPoint presentation to their Web site about the proposed calendar changes. The board hopes to gain input from the community and reach a decision by March so they will have a calendar to begin building their budget around by June.

“When a school system our size is short nearly $2 million,” Stanton said, “it has an affect.”

The board is considering an alternative calendar in an effort to offset austerity cuts mandated by the state, which has slashed 3 percent of the school system’s Fiscal Year 2010 budget and enforced three more furlough days for teachers.

In other news, the board discussed teacher efficacy issues, their contract with the West Georgia Regional Library, their wide area network for telephones and Internet connection, an amendment for the FY10 budget and policy reviews, all of which were moved to the agenda for the regularly scheduled board meeting.