Dec. 2-According to the Martinsville Bulletin a series of meetings are planned for the school investigation. Reference Sunday news paper.

Source: Martinsville Bulletin Meetings set on Patrick County school probe Sunday, December 2, 2012 By DEBBIE HALL - Bulletin Staff Writer The Patrick County School Board is planning a series of meetings with school representatives, administrators and its attorney in response to the draft report on a state investigation of the division. That report claimed some diplomas were issued inappropriately and it addressed other complaints made about the division to the Virginia Department of Education. At a meeting Friday, the Patrick school board announced it would meet next week with 21 staff members, representing every school in the division, to discuss the findings in the draft report. That discussion will occur at 4:30 p.m. Friday in closed session, according to Bobby Mangrum, school board chairman. Although he declined to identify the staff members because they had not been contacted when the school board meeting ended Friday, Mangrum said “these are people that we feel are representatives of the schools and are” respected in their communities. He also declined to say how many staff members from each school would participate. However, the majority will be from the high school because the majority of concerns that prompted the state investigation “were from the high school, and we want to hear a lot more from them,” Mangrum said. He said he anticipates the closed session will take an hour, then “we will discuss what the concerns are, where the problems are and how to move things forward.” The board then plans to hold three more special meetings to discuss the report, Mangrum said. The two sessions where the report will be discussed with administrators and the school board’s attorney primarily will be in closed session. The final special meeting will be held in open session, “and we would ask that” those attending comment not only on items identified in the report and other concerns, but also “good things that are going on” in the county schools, he said. Those meetings were announced Friday after the school board met in closed session for more than 90 minutes. During its open session, the board discussed questionable practices on grading and the other concerns cited in the draft report that was compiled after a week-long investigation and review by the Virginia Department of Education. Dan River District school board member Quinn Brim said the “last line” of the DOE finding “implies that grades were changed” at the direction of administrators, and he wanted to continue that discussion when the board went into closed session. “The issue was have people been forced to change grades,” Mangrum said. Brim said that administrators may have “assisted in” changing grades. “Do you have proof” that an administrator directed teachers to change grades, Mangrum asked Brim. “We can’t get proof,” said an unidentified teacher, who was among the 50 people attending the meeting. That comment prompted several people to begin talking simultaneously. “Hush. Hush,” Mangrum said. “Come one guys, we’re nit-picking ourselves to death. We are a good school system. We can work together.” He then reminded those present that the meeting was not “a public input meeting” but the board was allowing some comments from residents, he said. “But we can’t work together to move forward if we keep moving ourselves back.” An unidentified parent asked the board about a letter written by a teacher who no is longer working in the school division, and claiming that she was told to change grades. “I think it’s hard to move on if there are no answers,” she said. “We would all like to move on, but first we would like answers.” Mangrum responded, “All I can do is work from the report done by DOE. I am not here to go on a witch-hunt. I am here to get through the report, understand the report and figure out a way for the school system to go forward.” Commenting before the board went into closed session, schools Superintendent Roger Morris said, “We have problems. I’m not going to say it’s anyone’s fault but mine.” More training, practices, policies and procedures are needed, as is a system of checks and balances, he said. “Redundancy will be the word of the day ... I’m not pleased with this report” either. “We are going to change” and create the corrective action plan required by the state, Morris said. He described the plan as “a road map for the future ... . We have to work together to move forward in love and forgiveness.”