Superintendent further explains reason for called work session

Superintendent David Lewis has provided more details about the reason for the Muscogee County School District’s specially called work session, scheduled to start Thursday at 5 p.m.

After the administration emailed the vague announcement Wednesday afternoon, disclosing only that the work session was called to present a proposed plan to revise alternative education programs, Lewis responded to the Ledger-Enquirer’s questions via text message.

In a text Wednesday evening, Lewis didn’t refer to the alternative education programs by their names, but he said they serve:

▪ Students assigned to alternative school for serious disciplinary offenses.

▪ Students who are over-aged and under-credited (e.g. 15 years old currently enrolled in 7^th grade).

▪ Students with emotional behavioral disorders that require therapeutic services beyond that which is normally provided in schools.

The board’s leadership, chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1 and vice chairwoman Kia Chambers, the nine-member board’s lone countywide representative, weren’t reached for comment about the called work session.

Cathy Williams, the board’s District 7 representative, told the Ledger-Enquirer in an interview, “I can’t tell you much because I think the board needs to hear it all at one time. I do know the superintendent, during the time that we hired him (in July 2013), we talked about how important alternative education is, and that was a focus we wanted him to look at. I know he had other things on his plate, and then the whole Woodall Center (issue) brought it back to the forefront, and in the meantime they’ve been working on proposals and doing due diligence.”

The Woodall Center is among the nine out of 24 facilities in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support that the state determined last year to be unfit for those programs. The MCSD board unanimously approved in August the superintendent’s recommendation to transfer the Woodall Program to Davis Elementary School, complying with the state’s order to immediately move those students from the Woodall Center because it was declared unsafe and unhealthy.

Monday, MCSD and seven other defendants were sued for $25 million in a personal injury complaint resulting from an incident in the AIM program, which serves students who violate the district’s discipline code and are temporarily removed from their assigned school. The lawsuit was filed in Muscogee County State Court on behalf of the Lawanda Thomas, the mother of Montravious Thomas, whose right leg was amputated below the knee after a contracted behavioral specialist allegedly body-slammed the 13-year-old boy multiple times Sept. 12 in the Edgewood Student Services Center. Edgewood houses AIM and Catapult Academy, a dropout recovery program.

This story was originally published March 15, 2017 at 10:25 PM with the headline "Superintendent further explains reason for called work session."