Buzz Brockway, VP of Policy, is in downtown Atlanta at the state Capitol building, and walks us through the the last day or sine die of the legislative session.
Our state lawmakers create policies that better the lives of Georgians. Learn more about active legislation and how it translates into everyday life for all of us.
The Georgia Center for Opportunity will host the Better Work Gwinnett Job Fair Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Infinite Energy Center parking deck in unincorporated Duluth.
During this drive-through job fair, job seekers will have an opportunity to meet Gwinnett County employers hiring for hundreds of full- and part-time jobs. Job-seekers will also have a chance to connect with employers virtually after the event. In addition to employers, a number of service providers will be at the event, offering help with food insecurity, housing, and more.
“The global pandemic is impacting our neighbors,” said Director of GCO’s Gwinnett Workforce Initiative, Jace Brooks. “When the pandemic started, Gwinnett County saw thousands of residents out of work, many of them faced housing and food insecurity…
The Georgia Center for Opportunity (GCO) is proud to announce a collaborative effort known as the Better Work Gwinnett Job Fair occurring April 1, 2021, from 10am to 2pm at the Infinite Energy Center Parking Deck. During this drive-through job fair, job seekers will have an opportunity to meet Gwinnett County employers hiring for hundreds of full- and part-time jobs. Job-seekers will also have a chance to connect with employers virtually after the event. In addition to employers, a number of service providers will be at the event, offering help with food insecurity, housing, and more….
“The global pandemic is impacting our neighbors,” said Director of GCO’s Gwinnett Workforce Initiative, Jace Brooks. “When the pandemic started, Gwinnett County saw thousands of residents out of work, many of them faced housing and food insecurity. A drive-thru job fair will allow job seekers the ability to connect with potential employers while still practicing social distancing and
safe health regulations. It’s been great to see local groups working together in such harmony for the good of the community. We know the job fair will be beneficial to our local residents, businesses, and economy.”
More than 20 employers are looking to fill hundreds of jobs and are making the interview process as safe and easy as possible.
Jobseekers will have the opportunity to meet employers from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Thursday at the Infinite Energy Center Parking Deck during a Better Work Gwinnett drive-thru job fair. The jobs are available in various industries and levels, and pay could range anywhere from $10 to $35 an hour depending on the position…
Better Work Gwinnett is a project born during the pandemic by the Gwinnett Workforce Initiative. The initiative is a collaboration between the nonprofit Georgia Center for Opportunity and several other organizations with a goal of placing people in jobs.
With about 30,000 jobless people in Gwinnett County, the initiative hopes to lower this number and fill 6,000 positions over the next three years by connecting jobseekers with employers, said Jace Brooks, director of the initiative.
Lawmakers in the Georgia House are likely to take up Senate Bill 47 as soon as today. SB47 makes vital improvements and updates to the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is an important way we can serve Georgia families and the special-needs community, as many of these students have been left behind due to school closures, learning loss, and lack of access to crucial therapies.
Among other key changes, SB47 would:
Sadly, the Georgia School Board Association is lobbying hard against SB47. The organization recently sent an email to supporters listing a number of objections to the measure and urging people to oppose it.
“Every child deserves to be wanted.” As a parent of a special needs student, Aidan’s mother, Tiffany struggled to find an education option that saw her son’s value.
Here are those objections and our responses from the Georgia Center for Opportunity team:
“There is no requirement that a student be re-evaluated to determine the students’ continued needs or eligibility. For example, an elementary student might have an IEP to receive speech therapy that they would not need after a few years.”
This seems like a red herring. It’s unfair to burden both public school systems and parents with constant revaluations in an attempt to catch a handful who no longer warrant an Individualized Learning Plan (IEP) or 504 plan. This would also create a massive burden on schools to evaluate kids who are no longer in the public school system.
The bottom line is that if a child is succeeding in a new environment, that’s a good thing. It doesn’t mean we should take them away from that school and put them back in an environment where they were not succeeding. We must prioritize the needs of individual students and get them the help they need. That standard is even more important for our neighbors in the special-needs community.
“There is no requirement that a private school provide the services in the IEP or 504 plan that the taxpayers are funding them to receive.”
No, but parents aren’t going to send their child to a school (especially if they need to come out of pocket with resources to do so) if the school cannot or is not meeting the child’s needs.
“There is no report to the taxpayers as to whether the students are receiving services or not.”
“Receiving services” is not an indicator of success. Children who are enrolled in public schools are also “receiving services,” but if their families choose to leave based on this scholarship, those services presumably are not meeting their needs. Parents have their children in the school of their choice voluntarily and they aren’t going to choose a school that can’t meet their child’s needs.
“Parents must give up all federal rights under IDEA or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act to take the voucher.”
IDEA was something disability advocates had to fight for so that public schools would treat students with special needs the right way. IDEA rights only apply to public schools, so by definition if a child is not in public school, those specific rights do not apply.
This doesn’t mean that these students are being mistreated. In fact, a parent has the ability to leave any private school that isn’t serving their child well, which is currently not the case for public schools. If a child returns to public school at any time, their rights under IDEA are still fully intact.
An imperfect analogy: You carry insurance on your car in case something happens. Then you move to a large city and can either walk or take the subway everywhere, so you sell the car. Someone might say, “But you gave up your insurance!” No, you gave up your car.
“There has never been an independent evaluation of the voucher program so we have no idea about a number of things including its effectiveness.”
There is literally a report that comes out on the program every year that includes 40 pages or so of information including academic performance data.
Parental satisfaction has been the major measure for accountability for this program and nothing in this bill changes that. That is completely inconsistent with a belief in transparency and accountability for the use of taxpayer dollars.
The issue lands here, providing quality education to all students is the goal and responsibility of our education system. It is a system that must take child and parental needs into the equation. When quality education is not accessible to a child (for WHATEVER reason that is) we must provide options. It is our responsibility to give each child a sense of purpose & belonging as we prepare them for their future.
