GwinnettForum | Number 22.17 | Feb. 28, 2023
REBOUNDING: This new greenery is not only pretty, but it signals that many azaleas in the area are coming back! Note you can even detect the color of these soon-opening blooms. It is a welcomed sign many in Gwinnett may have noticed also in their yards. The long below-freezing spell a few weeks ago may have caused the azalea leaves to shed, but the young green leaves and buds show that there is life in many azaleas, and other shrubs, in Gwinnett. It is something that made our day, and perhaps yours, too!
TODAY’S FOCUS: Comment from a recent meeting with Gwinnett’s School Board
EEB PERSPECTIVE: What is your reason you live where you do?
SPOTLIGHT: Crowne Plaza Hotel
ANOTHER VIEW: Two simple lessons taught this lesson in salesmanship
FEEDBACK: Schools should focus on fixing lack of courtesy and accountability
UPCOMING: Commission gives green light to variety of new project
NOTABLE: Gainesville Hospital become Level One Trauma Center
RECOMMENDED: Moby Dick by Herman Melville
GEORGIA TIDBIT: Chattahoochee Riverkeeper helps protect these waters
MYSTERY PHOTO: Check out these standing plaques and tell where they are
LAGNIAPPE: Beautiful blooms at the Collins Hill Public Library
CALENDAR: State of the County speech will be on March 2
Comment from a recent meeting with Gwinnett’s School Board
By Cathy Loew
PEACHTREE CORNERS, Ga. | Let me agree wholeheartedly with Jack Bernard’s Today’s Focus. Our Gwinnett Schools are a mess and not many people are paying attention. Perhaps people will notice when we lose a bond rating, employers choose not to move to Gwinnett or Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) students can’t get into the University of Georgia. But for now, people have their heads in the sand.
Loew
Below are my thoughts from a recent school board meeting.
On December 2, a total of 268 teacher vacancies were listed on the GCPS website. February 21, there were 493 teacher vacancies and the contract cycle hasn’t even begun.
I have been a parent in GCPS for 20 years and I can assure you the teachers are what make GCPS successful. My kids have been exposed to over 200 teachers in the Norcross Cluster and all have all exceeded expectations.
Teachers are afraid of retribution for speaking out. I was asked to read the following anonymously, from a teacher.
Have you ever considered investing time and money into those who are ALREADY employed? A sign-on bonus just gets people in the door, it doesn’t mean they will stay. You are offering sign-on bones up to $6,000. What are you offering your current teachers? Research proves, employers SAVE money by investing in current employees. Turnover is costly.
Sign-on bonuses encourage a “quick money fix.” I don’t know of one teacher motivated to TEACH for the money. People are encouraged to apply without teacher certification. That’s a frightening thought.
Show your current teachers GCPS VALUES their experienced teachers by providing bonuses for longevity. Do not end the STEP increases at 28 years.
GCPS MUST remain competitive with surrounding counties. For example, Cobb is currently paying their teachers $10,000 dollars more than Gwinnett. Cobb has recently launched an incredible incentive for earning advanced degrees at no cost to the teachers. They offer Masters, Specialists and Doctorate Degrees through a partnership with the University of West Georgia.
Board members have been invited several times to teach in a classroom. Have any of you accepted the invitation? You claim to “stop by” and walk the halls of a school. But really you are just visiting select schools and not all the schools you serve. Stay with a teacher in their classrooms, meetings, and parent interactions.
Please host town hall meetings with teachers and staff by clusters or districts. But do not meet just with members picked by their principals, because they know they won’t rock the boat. We are talking about meetings where we can ask questions and bring to light problems without fear of reprimand. From those town hall meetings, use committees to create and implement action plans to address the needs of our schools from the inside out. Lastly, are exit interviews provided to the teachers leaving?
I will close with my personal comments. I sincerely thank the wonderful teachers that have impacted my kids. Whenever a young family would ask me about GCPS, I would share my personal experiences and advise them to save their money for college. After two years of chaos, I give different advice. I encourage them to enroll in private school because of the loss of valuable teachers and the changes in discipline policy creating an unsafe learning environment. I received the very best GCPS had to offer. Those days are gone.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
What is your reason you live where you do?
By Elliott Brack
Editor and Publisher, GwinnettForum
FEB. 28, 2023 | What made you live where you presently live?
Did your family move here when you were young, and you got used to the area?- Did you come to this area to go to school, and liked it?
- Or did a job come open here, and you took it?
- Perhaps your company transferred you here?
- Maybe it was love that attracted you to this area.
- Many of us were born nearby, and have never lived elsewhere.
- And some were just born right here in Gwinnett.
But for sure, our area, and Gwinnett County in particular, has seen tremendous growth in the last 73 years. Gwinnett has zoomed from 32,320 people in 1950….to today’s near one million residents. Yep, big wow!
Just by reading the local obituaries, you can get a feel for the great number of people who have moved to the area from other places, not only throughout the United States, but today, often from throughout the world. You can feel overwhelmed by the many people who were born in other areas, but now called Georgia and Metro Atlanta home.
For me, I’m one born in Middle Georgia. But why I live in Georgia now was a conscious decision that I made when I was just before getting out of college. I remember it distinctly.
It was one of these glorious February days (like we have had recently) when I was 21 years old. I was visiting my future wife at her family’s home and farm in Macon, and the sun was shining brightly, and the leaves were beginning to bud out on bushes and trees, and I remember thinking: “Why in the world would I want to live anywhere else?”
Meanwhile, in those days you read in the papers, heard on the radio, and saw on the limited television we had then, that February days in other parts of the country were often cold, with snow storms, and often far from beautiful sunny weather.
That’s what drew my thought: “Yep, Georgia’s where I want to make my future home.”
Don’t get me wrong: February can be grouchy with dreadful and harsh weather. And sometimes such weather seems to last all month, with dreary, overcast and cold days, making the shortest month seem like the longest month. Your hands and feet stay cold, even when in the house.
Yet Mother Nature in February can show Georgians better days, as we have had in 2023, when February’s beautiful weather can enliven your spirits, and let you know that better days are closer than ever.
That can pump you up, and yearn to be outside in the good weather. Even though your outlook may be temporarily thwarted by the sure-to-come few days of blackberry winter, you are pepped up about the coming good weather in front of you.
That was the case of this Georgian. We would soon graduate from college, have nine months working as a newspaperman before going to serve as an officer in the Army and be sent to Germany for the next 3.5 years! (That was a grand tour of service for me and my wife, and a son was born in Germany). Then back to the States and to the soon-cold weather of Iowa for a year in graduate school….and finally, back to Georgia!
That’s why I live here. Think about yourself: why did you come to live in Georgia?
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Two simple lessons taught this lesson in salesmanship
Photo via Unsplash.
By Raleigh Perry
BUFORD, Ga. | In spite of all of what I learned in school and college, I spent my whole working life selling. Ninety percent of selling is personality. The other ten is product knowledge. You are born into selling, you cannot get it with book learning.
Perry
Two men taught me how to sell and sell successfully. I had been in trite sales positions for a while and then was hired by Sears to sell paint. I sold there for about a year and then thought that I could make more money somewhere else. I interviewed with the manager of a Glidden Paint store. The first question he asked me was “How much did you sell today?”
I told him that my cash register said $2,000. He then said “I did not ask you how many dollars were in your cash register drawer, I asked you how much you sold.”
Then he elaborated that if a man came in and wanted a gallon of paint and walked out only with that paint, “You have not sold anything.” He explained that the man was obviously wanting to paint a house or room.
“You needed to find out if he has a brush or roller, paint thinner, rags, a drop cloth amongst other things”. He taught me that the margin on the can of paint was small, say 20 percent, but the margins on the accessories could run 50-70 percent. “Pitch everything he might need.”
The other teacher was when I was working for Random House selling college textbooks. We were at the University of Florida in Gainesville and they had a mandatory course called Social Science. All freshmen had to take it and there were 2,900 freshmen in that course that year. Every book company was trying to get that big sale, but none had.
However, I did what I was told to at the last sales meeting, I called on all of the professors to pitch a book that “our management said,” was just right for the course. It wasn’t! I called on 20 professors and no one was interested.
The books, like many schools, were chosen by committee so if you sold one, you sold 2,900. But that was not going to happen with that book.
My manager and I rode the elevator to the bottom floor and got a cup of coffee. He told me that these professors all used paperbacks, a bunch of them, and our company had the largest list of social science paperbacks of all the book publishers. “Go in tomorrow and pitch those.” I had a little catalog about 3/4 of an inch that had all of what we called the “back list.”
The main book that I had pitched the day before cost $15. We went back to all of the offices and went through that catalog. They used 10 paperbacks the next year. Eight of them were mine, which amounted to $60 per student. So 60 times 2,900 is a lot more than 15 times 2,900. My manager simply reminded me to pitch everything in your bag, and therein lies success.
- Have a comment? Send to: elliott@brack.net
Crowne Plaza Hotel
The public spiritedness of our sponsors allows us to bring GwinnettForum.com to you at no cost to readers. Today’s underwriting sponsor is the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Norcross. It has the only four-star hotel in the area, at the intersection of Peachtree Industrial Boulevard and Holcomb Bridge Road. Its 238 rooms and 10,000 square feet of meeting spaces await you. Enjoy amenities such as an on-site pool and fitness center. Enjoy the elegant Eighteen70 restaurant and lounge (named for the date the City of Norcross was founded.) You will find the two ballrooms and in-house catering make for a perfect wedding venue. Parking is always free, and you can easily connect to the internet without cost. Nearby are shopping, sports and parks. The Chattahoochee River is two miles away, offering some of the best trout fishing in its cold waters. For more details call 770 448 4400, or visit www.crowneplaza.com/norcrossga.
- For a list of other sponsors of this forum, click here.
Schools should focus on fixing lack of courtesy, accountability
Editor, the Forum:
The article on February 24 about teacher shortages failed to address the main reason that teacher turnover is so high. As an employee for Gwinnett County Public Schools for over 22 years I heard from many teachers and other school employees on why they were deciding to leave the teaching profession. The down and dirty reason was student discipline, parent behavior, and lack of support from school administrators and the main office on discipline issues.
While the system preached that students disrupting the classroom would be removed, that rarely happened because principals had measurements and goals to keep students in the classroom. As a result many students continued to remain in the classroom disrupting the educational day for the majority of the students and thus frustrating teachers who constantly had to fill out paperwork on these disruptive students.
To compound the issue, a large percent of the parents were combative, belligerent, and litigious if their students were disciplined at school. Some of these parents even resorted to violence. The lack of consequences, support from the school system and the constant battle our teachers have in getting support from parents will continue to make it a challenge to recruit the best into the educational field.
We will be made to believe that the easy answer to the problem is to toss money at it and provide more training. While these professionals are underpaid, the real focus should be on how to fix the lack of courtesy, respect, and accountability in the homes of the students with discipline issues.
While we continue to fail to address the discipline issues we will struggle to retain quality teachers. The silent majority of students and parents will continue to be forced to accept a substandard educational day because our teachers are forced to spend an inordinate amount of time with a small percent of disruptive students.
– Don Moore, Suwanee
(Editor’s note: the writer was previously executive director of transportation for the Gwinnett schools.)—eeb
More on local schools and about N.C.’s Lotta Cola
Editor, the Forum:
The February 24 Forum was another great edition. I was surprised (and disappointed) to see so many local schools that are poorly rated. If I had brought home a report card like those mentioned, there was likely a serious discussion at my house and a rearranging of my outside activities for the next six weeks .
If this is a fiscal issue, that should be addressed as soon as possible; teacher shortages abound. Possibly more discipline is needed to maintain a learning environment. Everyone reading this article should contact the schools in their area and take a greater interest in supporting and encouraging their districts.
On another subject, there was another “cola” called Lotta Cola (this is rural North Carolina) and it was a full 14 oz bottle. It was more in volume but it wasn’t better than the RC we all remember. Lotta Cola was only in the market for several years.
On most Saturday mornings we rode our bikes or walked down to the ball field; sometimes we stayed all day . When your side went in to bat you usually left your glove on the field, since a lot of us didn’t have our own glove back then. More players showed up as the day wore on. The local farmers had put up a screened backstop; but there were no outfield fences. There was a local store nearby where you could get a cold drink. Mother usually fixed me a tomato sandwich and a slice of pound cake. How we came to have that ball field is another story for another day.
– John Moore, Duluth
The Trail of Tears is a heart-wrenching reminder of our history
Editor, the Forum:
Appreciate your comment of Gwinnett in regards to the Trails of Tears. It is a heart-wrenching reminder of history, the tragic decision the United States government in the 1800’s decided to take all Indian territory land, and relocate them, forcing all Indians to walk to their new permanent location in the Oklahoma territory. Many died along the way, which is totally mind blowing, hence “The Trail of Tears,” Visiting an Indian territory today is very sad to see how the Indian culture had to change and slowly through the years deteriorated.
– Helen Roquemore, Auburn
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Commission gives green light to variety of new projects
The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners gave the green light to several new items recently. Here are some highlights:
Big upgrades and repairs will take place at Lenora Park Pool, Collins Hill Park Aquatic Center and Mountain Park Aquatic Center. The improvements include the removal and replacement of tile, plaster and pool shell expansion joints at the indoor competition pools at Collins Hill Park and Mountain Park. Lenora Park Pool will undergo the removal and replacement of perimeter pool deck joints. A portion of the $329,000 project is funded by the 2017 SPLOST program.
The County will apply for a $120,000 grant through the Atlanta Regional Commission’s 2023 Livable Centers Initiative Program. Partnering with the Centerville Community Association, the County wants to focus on a plan that will prioritize pedestrian and bicycle access to transit locations close to the Centerville area. The County will contribute $30,000. The overall project is estimated to cost $150,000.
Gwinnett Police were awarded a $50,000 grant by the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency. Funds will be used to secure emergency management supplies such as shelter kits, portable fans and heaters and rapidly inflatable tents to be used in the emergency operation center. The County matched the $50,000 grant.
Retirement: After being shot while tracking an armed suspect in May 2022, Gwinnett Police K9 Kai will officially retire from service. The three-year-old Belgian Malinois will now live with his handler, Corporal Aaron Carlyle.
More than 50 miles of roads will be resurfaced, costing more than $26 million. This includes patching, milling and paving roads across Gwinnett. Manholes and markings will also be improved. This resurfacing project is funded by the 2017 SPLOST Program and the Georgia Department of Transportation.
New sidewalks are coming to the city of Snellville. Gwinnett County will partner with the city of Snellville to install sidewalks on Skyland Drive and Pinehurst Road. The total cost of this project is $1.9 million, including a county contribution of $800,000. Snellville will manage the project, which is funded by the 2017 SPLOST program.
Hospital in Gainesville is now a Level I trauma center
Patients north of Atlanta can now rest assured that they will receive the highest level of trauma care as soon as they need it, as Northeast Georgia Medical Center (NGMC) Gainesville was recently verified as a Level I trauma center. This makes NGMC Gainesville one of five state-designated Level I trauma centers in Georgia and only the fourth nationally-verified Level I trauma center in the state.
Carol Burrell, president and CEO of Northeast Georgia Health System, says: “Since NGMC Gainesville’s Level II trauma center designation in 2013, our amazing trauma team has cared for nearly 20,000 trauma patients that would have had to travel outside our region for care.”
According to the American College of Surgeons, verified Level I trauma centers must be capable of providing system leadership and comprehensive trauma care for all injuries.
Verified Level I centers also have an important role working with first responders and other agencies to develop a local trauma system and regional disaster planning.
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
From Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill: Volumes have been written about Melville’s classic whaling adventure and observations on life, so I will add only my personal impressions. I hated Moby Dick in high school but, five decades later, it’s a different book. OK, maybe I’m different. Today, I appreciate its magnificent – often richly poetic – language, its robust descriptions and its surprising humor. I relished the first part of the book but, about halfway through, the story suddenly shifted to detailed stomach-turning butchering and whale anatomy. It became a jargon-filled course on whales and navigation. However, the story picked up toward the end. Chock full of vastly wide-ranging and scholarly references, Moby Dick showcases Melville’s stunning knowledge of literature, history, geography and – well — whales. It’s hard to believe this self-taught brilliant author dropped out of school at age 12. I recommend this book for people with strong stomachs and a great deal of patience.
- An invitation: what books, restaurants, movies or web sites have you enjoyed recently? Send us your recent selection, along with a short paragraph (150 words) as to why you liked this, plus what you plan to visit or read next. Send to: elliott@brack.net
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper helps protect these waters
Chattahoochee Riverkeeper (formerly Upper Chattachoochee Riverkeeper) was established in 1994 by a group of Atlanta environmentalists, scientists, and community activists to protect the Chattahoochee River basin. The group’s primary focus begins at the river’s headwaters in the Chattahoochee National Forest in the north Georgia mountains and continues downstream through the city of Atlanta to West Point Lake in Heard County, encompassing more than 200 miles of the Chattahoochee River.
The mission of the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper is to advocate and secure protection and stewardship of the Chattahoochee River and its tributaries and watershed in order to restore and conserve their ecological health for the people, fish, and wildlife that depend on the river system.
Riverkeeper actively uses advocacy, education, research, communication, cooperation, monitoring, and legal actions to protect and preserve the Chattahoochee and its watershed.
The Chattahoochee River has been named one of the most endangered rivers in the United States due to poor water quality, which has resulted from sprawling development and growth. With a team of experts from the fields of ecology, science, law, and engineering, Riverkeeper takes strategic and aggressive actions to protect the Chattahoochee River, which is the primary drinking source for about 4 million Georgians, Alabamians, and Floridians. The organization uses its resources to determine the health of the waters through monitoring, to secure compliance with clean water permits, to promote protection of streamside buffers, to advocate environmentally sound planning and zoning, to strengthen state and federal water-quality programs, and to increase community involvement through public-awareness campaigns.
Riverkeeper also promotes river stewardship through outreach programs. These programs include:
- A stream-monitoring network promoting the Georgia Adopt-A-Stream Program within the Chattahoochee River watershed
- Educational school programs for K-12 students focusing on water quality and “hands-on” protection of the river basin
- A “floating classroom” created at the Lake Lanier Aquatic Learning Center, where students board the Chota Princess, a forty-four-person pontoon boat, and conduct water-quality tests and learn about the lake environment
- Hosting canoe and hiking river adventures for members to learn about the many faces of the Chattahoochee.
- To view the Georgia Encyclopedia article online, go to https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org
Check out these standing plaques and tell where they are
Here’s a setting that reminds this corner of the Veterans Memorial at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration center. It’s for a far different subject, and your job is to tell us about it, and where this photograph was made.
Lots of people recognized an exhibit at the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation in Dearborn, Mich. Among them: Channing Haskell, Peachtree Corners; Jay Altman, Columbia, S.C.; Michael Blackwood, Duluth; Steve Ogilvie of Lawrenceville; and Don Bollinger of Loganville, who wrote: “That is the RV used by Charles Kuralt that he used in his ‘On the Road with Charles Kuralt’ for CBS. He was the original host of CBS Sunday Morning, and set the tone for in-depth reporting for the show, emphasizing the Arts. Personally, he was a keynote speaker for a conference in Jefferson City Missouri, and I was assigned the task of taking him to the airport in St. Louis, a 2 1/2 hour ride. We talked about the backstories of national and international politics the entire ride. His insight was indescribable, always in search of America’s people and their doings.”
Allan Peel of San Antonio, Tex. added: “Each year from 1967 to 1980, Kuralt traveled roughly 50,000 miles throughout the 50 states in a number of different motorhomes. He would roam off the beaten path in search of stories that otherwise might have gone unreported.The last motorhome he used was a 1973 FMC 2900R, the one depicted in the mystery photo (FMC is short for Food Machinery Corporation, but that’s a whole different story!)”
Others recognizing the photo were Susan McBrayer, Sugar Hill; Jim Cofer, Snellville; John Titus, Peachtree Corners; Lou Camerio, Lilburn, who added: “This is when Walter Cronkite was the ‘Most Trusted Man in America.’ Things have really changed in tv broadcast news;” and George Graf of Palmyra, Va., who wrote: “The FMC 2900R shown in your photo was the last and most celebrated of the six On the Road buses. Kuralt’s introduction to it, however, was grim. ‘The first time we turned on the windshield wipers,’ he says, ‘one of them flew off and vanished into the storm.’ Nonetheless, it was driven 240,000 miles.
“Apart from two CBS eyeball logos and a largish TV antenna, the exterior of the FMC is remarkable only for its grotesque trapezoidal shape and its unremitting ungainliness—it’s 8.5 feet tall and almost 30 feet long. It is powered by a 440-cubic-inch Chrysler V-8 tucked catty-cornered behind the right-rear wheels and weighed 12,500 pounds.”
>>> SHARE A MYSTERY PHOTO: If you have a photo that you believe will stump readers, send it along (but make sure to tell us what it is because it may stump us too!) Send to: elliott@brack.net and mark it as a photo submission. Thanks.
Another sign of the warm weather: Roving photographer Frank Sharp captured the large blossoms on what he says is a tulip poplar tree, with the Collins Hill Public Library in the background. Other signs of springs are enlivening us all around Gwinnett.
State of the county address will be Thursday, March 2, at 8:30 a.m. at 12Stone Church, 1322 Buford Drive in Lawrenceville. Chairman Nicole Hendrickson will make the address. It is sponsored by the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce and the Council for Quality Growth.
Gwinnett Ballet Theatre presents two iconic ballets at the Gas South Theatre on March 4 at 7:30 p.m. and March 5 at 2 p.m. The ballets are Carmen and Paquita, two classical ballets. Paquita, set by GBT’s Artistic Director Lori Zamzow-Wire, and contemporary ballet Carmen, choreographed and set by Michael Garrison, are full of precise technique, dazzling costumes, and exciting music. Use the discount code “BringAFriend” to receive two tickets for the price of one at the Gas South box office.
Career Fair will be held March 9 at Annandale Village in Suwanee. Open positions include CNAs, CMAs, LPNs, RNs, direct support professionals and much more, including roles in food services, housekeeping and transportation. A full list of open positions can be found online at annandale.candidatecare.jobs. Annandale Village is one of three places in the United States offering a full continuum of care for adults living with developmental disabilities or acquired brain injuries, from independent community-based care to on-campus independent and semi-independent living, through assisted living and skilled nursing.
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