Johnston County schools to regulate social network usage

Wed, 23 May 2012 23:40:00 +0000

Johnston County school leaders are aiming to get a better handle on how students, teachers and staff use social-networking websites like Facebook.

The school board earlier this month voiced its approval of separate policies governing how students and teachers use the sites –– even when they’re not on campus.

The policy for students is an effort to help principals crack down on cyberbullying and other forms of online harassment that could wind up in the classroom. “Our building administrators need guidelines to follow as they encounter occurrences where social-network messages and/or related postings cause or could cause a disruption to the regular school day even when said messages and postings originate off school grounds,” school officials wrote in a memo to board members.

Under the policy, principals will be able to punish students for online posts and messages as if the words were spoken at school. The rules ban all messages that violate school regulations; make threats against students, teachers or school property; harass, bully or intimidate students or employees; libel or defame the schools, employees or students; or include “profane, vulgar, obscene or sexually offensive” language, pictures or graphics.

Also, students are not allowed to post photos of school employees online without their written permission. And they can’t pose as a teacher or school employee online. In some other school districts, students have landed in hot water for creating Facebook or Twitter accounts under their teachers’ names.

Cyberbullying cases have been reported in Johnston County. Last year, two South Johnston High School students were charged with the crime after investigators say they created a Facebook page to threaten a classmate. The teens apparently didn’t make any threats at school.

School administrators also want to keep an eye on what teachers are posting online. “Inappropriate use of social media and other forms of electronic communication may breach laws and policies governing confidentiality and privacy and/or cause disruptions in the workplace or school environment,” school officials wrote in a memo to board members.

Under the policy, employees can’t use social-networking sites to communicate with students, parents or co-workers – so teachers can’t “friend” their students on Facebook. And teachers can’t publicly post anything on social-networking sites that “would not be appropiate to share or discuss with students at school,” the policy states. School employees are encouraged to use privacy settings so students and parents can’t see their posts.

Also, teachers can’t post anything about their students or co-workers that might compromise confidentiality or appear unprofessional. Two years ago, Wake County suspended a middle school teacher after she posted comments about her students’ behavior and Christianity on Facebook. At the time, Wake County schools had no policy on social media.

information provided by The Clayton News-Star

Principal's List and Honor Roll for the first nine weeks of school

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 00:15:00 +0000

Honor Roll Lists as posted on the Herald NC

Caterpillar expands: 199 jobs, $33 million 5-year investment

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 23:45:00 +0000

CLAYTON -- N.C. Gov. Bev Perdue announced today that Caterpillar Inc., will expand its manufacturing facilities in Johnston County.

The company plans to create 199 jobs during the next five years and invest $33 million.

Caterpillar, located off N.C. 42 East in Clayton, is the largest maker of construction and mining equipment, diesel and natural gas engines, and industrial gas turbines in the world.

The new project was made possible in part by state grants from the Job Development Investment Grant program and One North Carolina Fund.

"Creating jobs is my top priority," Perdue stated in a press release. "And the fact that globally competitive companies continue to make investments like these in North Carolina proves that our legacy of investing in education and worker training has paid off."

Perdue added that the state's "highly skilled and knowledgeable workforce" will serve Caterpillar's advanced manufacturing needs.

In Clayton, Caterpillar will expand its existing operations, part of Caterpillar's Building Construction Products (BCP) Division which celebrated its 20th anniversary in December.

Upon completion, the Clayton facility will be the world source for several models of small wheel loaders produced by Caterpillar which are used in road, utility and building construction and often sold to small, local contracting businesses.

Engineering and design work for BCP products will take place at a new engineering and test facility near Caterpillar's Clayton manufacturing facility.

"As we see global demand for our products increase, we continue to make long-term investments like this in our facilities to help meet customer needs," Mary Bell, Caterpillar vice president with responsibility for the Building Construction Products Division in Clayton, stated in a press release from the governor's office.

While individual wages for jobs will vary by job function, the overall average salary for these new jobs will be $41,466, plus benefits. The average annual wage in Johnston County is $31,460.

According to the press release, Caterpillar has been awarded a $400,000 grant from the state's One North Carolina Fund, which gives cash grants to attract business projects that the governor sees as vital toward growing the state's economy.

To earn the grant, companies must meet job creation and investment targets to receive payments. These grants also require local matching in funds, making this grant contingent upon local incentives.

The state Economic Investment Committee today also voted to award a Job Development Investment Grant to Caterpillar. JDIGs are awarded only to new and expanding businesses and industrial projects whose benefits exceed the costs to the state and which would not be undertaken in North Carolina without the grant.

If Caterpillar meets the targets called for under the agreement and sustains them for nine years, the JDIG could yield $1.644 million in maximum benefits for the company.

In addition, up to $548,000 could be added to the state's Utility Fund for infrastructure improvements in economically distressed counties. When a JDIG is awarded in counties such as Johnston, 25 percent of the grant is given to this fund to encourage economic development.

information provided by Clayton News Star

185-day school calendar approved for Johnston county schools

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:00:00 +0000

Teachers and students will have five extra school days next year, and this year's 15 coveted teacher work days will be cut down to nine.

Johnston County Schools received a waiver to keep the 180-day school year despite a mandate in June's budget bill that added five more days.

That waiver expires for the 2012-2013 year, forcing the school board to approve a 185-school-day calendar at their meeting last week.

But the N.C. General Assembly is planning to revisit the legislation in the short session in February after school officials and parents began complaining that five extra days would be logistically and financially difficult.

A 2004 school calendar law championed by the state tourism industry bookended the school year to begin no later than Aug. 25 and end no later than June 10, making it more difficult to squeeze in five extra days without cutting holidays and teacher work days.

"I don't know of any administrator or educator that's opposed to having five additional days. It's only going to improve academic achievement," said Johnston County Superintendent Ed Croom. "But trying to cram it in without any wiggle room at the front end or the back end doesn't work."

Croom said the N.C. Association of School Administrators has been speaking with legislators about their concerns regarding the start and end date.

"That's a conflict with the tourism industry," Croom said. "I don't think they understand the amount of work that goes in at the end of the semester to get grades done. Teachers don't have time to get paperwork done."

Hoping for a reprieve

The Johnston County schools calendar committee will meet again in January to devise a 180-day calendar in case the legislature moves to change the law in the short session.

N.C. Rep. James Langdon, R-Johnston, said that while the legislature might take any action in the short session, it will definitely consider the concerns that school officials have brought to its attention.

"We'll definitely look at it and address the concerns they seem to have," Langdon said. "One of the things is, doing the five days in the calendar, as it is now, I think it was pressing some of the things that they wanted to do."

Langdon said the legislature can only take action on money-related issues in the short session. But as five extra days will cost Johnston County schools $250,000 in transportation, pay and nutrition, the issue could be considered actionable.

Langdon said it's unlikely that the legislature would reexamine the bookend law in the short session. The legislature introduced a bill last year to restore local flexibility to school calendars, but it never made it out of committee.

Randy Parker, a science teacher at Clayton High School, sat on the calendar committee this year and found it challenging to fit in the necessary holidays, annual leave days and teacher work days within the summer vacation mandate.

"The big constraint is the legislature mandating you can't start past June 10 or before Aug. 25. There weren't a lot of options as to what you can do without those dates being released or being flexible with those dates. It puts us in a bind," Parker said.

The current schedule makes it especially difficult for high school students, because exams have been pushed ahead to after winter break.

"Those kids have Christmas break, come back for a week or two weeks, then we're back in exams again. A few years back when we left at Christmas we were done with the semester," Parker said.

"It doesn't affect middle or elementary, but there's about a week or so that we lose with those kids because we've got testing and remediation and retesting right after Christmas," Parker said, referring specifically to students who lose time in year-long advanced placement classes like AP Biology.

Losing work days

As for teacher workdays, the calendar committee managed to keep the days that Parker said are most important - the ones at the beginning, middle and end of the school year.

For high school, having a workday between semesters is crucial for preparing for the next batch of students, Parker said. In middle schools and elementary schools, workdays at the end of each quarter are important for grading, and those days have been taken away in October and March.

In fact, one of the problems that Johnston County Schools Chief Personnel Officer Robin Little pointed out at the school board meeting is that there is no break between a work day in January and Spring break at the very end of March.

The committee managed to save Labor Day, maintain six teacher work days at the start of the year and two at the end, and they managed to keep the Wednesday before Thanksgiving as a holiday.

Parker said that while many teachers might miss the extra workdays - 10 years ago there were 20 - he said he usually has his grades in before the end of the quarter.

"As far as (finishing) grades and materials and that kind of thing, with the way the exam schedule is, if we're not proctoring or giving an exam we have some time in our classroom to be able to get some of our work done," Parker said.

The real loss, he said, could be felt in losing teacher work days as training days for the implementation of the new federal Common Core and state Essential Standards curriculum.

"Where that's going to go in the school year, I don't know, but I would hope that those get done on work days rather than school days, because I'd hate to be pulled out of the classroom to do that training."

information provided by The Clayton News-Star

Clayton News-Star's Christmas decoration photo contest

Mon, 26 Dec 2011 19:45:00 +0000

The Sacca family won the Clayton News-Star's Christmas decoration photo contest.

A family affair, they add something to their front lawn menagerie and lit-up house every year.

When the Sacca family was getting ready to move to Clayton from Massachusetts five years ago, they filled extra bins with discounted Christmas decorations during the post-holiday discounts.

They used to limit decorations to the house itself, but their new house in the Riverwood neighborhood features a large front lawn, perfect for spacing out all kinds of lit-up winter animals, stacks of presents and Christmas trees.

"It gets bigger every year, because after Christmas we always add something new," said Lisa Federico Sacca. But Sacca doesn't want to take all the credit, she says. It's really her two children, 7-year-old Christopher and 12-year-old Bryanna, along with her husband Rich Sacca, who do all the work.

"We do it for our children," Sacca said. "Basically we go over with extra color and all of that because, I would like it simpler, but once you have kids you want it as extravagant as you can."

This year, Christopher decided that he wanted blue lights on the house, so half the house is lit up in blue, as is the front door. Bryanna had her heart set on white icicle lights over the garage windows.

"I wanted white all over my house and color out on the front lawn, but I let them do it, and my son picked what he likes," Sacca said. But the stand-out feature - an ice-skating snowman - was her idea.

Only one of two houses on a private cul-de-sac, Sacca doesn't think the house is too bright for her neighbors. She did, however, find out that a group was photographing the house as part of a scavenger hut for the brightest Christmas decorations, and her neighbor took a photo and sent it to family up north explaining that, 'this is how the south decorates.'

Sacca said their electric bill goes up by about $300 between the weekend after Thanksgiving and New Year's Day, but it all amounts to just another present for the kids.

And as loud as their decorations are, the Sacca family is spending a quiet Christmas at home.

By the time Rich Sacca reads this story, he'll already know about his surprise deep fryer that they'll use to fry the turkey for Christmas dinner.

"My mom comes over, the kids will hang around at home, open presents," Sacca said. "Our family's all up north and we're here, but we just stay home and enjoy Christmas with the family."

As for next year, more colors and maybe an ice-skating polar bear are waiting to join the scene on the Sacca's front lawn.

information provided by The Clayton News-Star