Petitions to Save Fernbank Science Center Gain Momentum
The science center is in jeopardy of losing its funding due to budget cuts at DeKalb County Schools, and parents and supporters of the science center are fighting to keep the doors open.
Parents, residents and friends of Fernbank Science Center are circulating two petitions that ask DeKalb County Schools to keep the doors of the science center open.
The science center is in jeopardy losing its funding after a school board committee recommended closing the center in an effort to plug a $73 million budget gap.
The district spends about $4.7 million to operate the Fernbank Science Center in Druid Hills and pay 56 full-time employees.
The center, which includes a museum and planetarium, offers hands-on education about animals and planets to about 160,000 school children and visitors each year.
One of the two petitions circulating around the community has more than 1,000 signatures.
“Our children's future--our nation's future--depends on a firm foundation in science and technology. Let's not rob our children of every opportunity to compete in our global economy,” authors of the petition wrote.
It’s unclear who started the petitions, but many parents and supporters of the science center have been vocal on the Save Fernbank Science Center Facebook page and local blogs.
Read the Dekalb County Board of Education: Save Fernbank Science Center petition here.
The Save Fernbank Science Center! petition is available here.
What’s your take — should the district consider closing the center to save money? Tell us in the comments!
Come join the rest of the VaHi-Druid Hills Patch fans on Facebook! It's Patch and Facebook together. Doesn't get much better than that.
Scott Holt
11:09 am on Monday, May 28, 2012
You miss the mark on what Fernbank provides, and that in itself is part of the problem. You state:
"The center, which includes a museum and planetarium, offers hands-on education about animals and planets to about 160,000 school children and visitors each year."
While correct, that is incomplete. A major part of the Center's mission is direct classroom education. It offers programs in general tools and techniques of science to middle-schoolers, AP courses physics, chemistry and psychology courses, classes in robotics, as well as participating in NASA's Science Engineering Mathematics and Aerospace Academy (SEMAA). In addition, it provides instructional support and professional development resources to science teachers throughout the system. These programs are the things Fernbank does which most directly support the primary instructional mission of the school system and are the things most worth saving. The exhibit hall and planetarium are great resources, but loss of specialized instructional resources would be the biggest blow to education in a county struggling to provide adequate instruction to its students.
I think that the lack of full comprehension of Fernbank's mission is one of the reasons why it is viewed by some as a "luxury" and why it's in jeopardy in a time when we definitely need to be reducing fat from the budget.
Eleanor Smithwick
2:45 pm on Monday, May 28, 2012
To lose Fernbank Science Center would be a tragedy for the school children of DeKalb and surrounding counties and for all Georgians. There is no other educational institution better organized and staffed to provide the intimate and unique educational experiences, scientific role models, and inspiration for learning to Georgia's children and adults. We must keep Fernbank Science Center and help it grow.
The Fernback Science Center and the Fernbank Museum both provide equally valuable but totally different learning opportunities. Find a way to keep them both, don't eliminate the right arm to serve the left. Find a way, write a grant, contact big business, contact local and national media (radio, TV, newspapers) to alert former students and teachers, contact influential people who were impacted positively by their experiences at Fernbank Science Center. We must save Fernbank Science Center.
Eleanor B. Smithwick, PhD
(Retired scientist and educator)
Michelle
8:00 pm on Monday, May 28, 2012
I am curious exactly how you expect DeKalb to pay for this. Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett don't have a FSC and they offer more services in each school than DeKalb does.
Fulton has an elementary school science teacher in every school. That might be of great benefit to all children. How about offering AP science classes in each school rather that expecting DCSS students to travel to Fernbank? In many ways, FSC is a crutch that keeps the system from offering a total education within the school.
Scott Holt
11:43 pm on Monday, May 28, 2012
AP Courses are offered in many schools - those that have enough critical mass of interested students to warrant dedicated teachers. If you are one of the 5 kids in a school who is interested in or qualified to take AP courses, guess what... no AP class for you. That's the kind of student who needs Fernbank. Kids at Lakeside, Dunwoody, Chamblee and Druid Hills will likely always have AP because there will likely always be enough interested students in those schools to justify it. Not so much elsewhere.
But since you ask, how do I expect the county to pay for it... exactly how the superintendent outlined in the proposed budget: with a 2 mil tax increase. The proposal to eliminate Fernbank was not part of that proposal, it was added when some commissioners objected to any tax increase. I understand that, they have a lot of pressure not to raise taxes. We can't, however, continue to short change this generation of students. The GIVE has to be both ways, and I think the students have already given enough.
It may be true that Fernbank is not sustainable in the long run, but dropping it at the 11th hour is just not right. Fund it for 2012-2013 and study alternate funding methods, work to transition it somewhere else, or work to integrate it's services into every school as you suggest.
Jane
9:21 pm on Monday, May 28, 2012
Fernbank Science Center consumes millions of science education dollars while our science achievement is the lowest in the metro area (with the exception of Clayton Schools). Fernbank employs five non teaching Exhibit Designers and one Cabinetmaker that cost $500,000 in salary and benefits while the entire science equipment and supply budget for the 95,000 student taught science every day in the regular education classrooms is $50,000 (50 cents a year per student). This center needs $2,000,000 in renovations to bring it up to date. The forest is now gone as the lease reverted to the Fernbank Museum. NASA eliminated funding the SEMAA program. Fernbank Science Center has 28 administrative and support personnel for 28 teachers. Divide $5,000,000 by 160,000 visitors and you will see that each visitor cost the school system $31.00. Shutter this moldy building and house the excellent Fernbank instructors throughout the school system where the services they provide can be accessible to more students for less cost.
Scott Holt
12:00 am on Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Jane, I am for saving the programs, particularly the direct instructional programs, that Fernbank offers. That's not the proposal... it seems that the proposal is just to cut it. Close it... shut it down. Will those teaching resources be distributed within the schools? Will those schools that, despite all this reshuffling, only have 5-10 students capable of taking AP Physics really be able to offer it (does that even make fiscal sense)?
If I accept what you say, then I agree, Fernbank needs serious restructuring. I also would agree that the exhibit hall and planetarium are really not aligned with the primary mission of the system (that is, instruction). However, pulling the rug out from under it at the 11th hour as a reaction to anti-tax rhetoric is short sighted.
Fund it (with administrative cuts) for 2012-2013 and use that time to try to transition the museum functions elsewhere. I doubt that Fernbank, Inc will take it on, but there may be other foundations willing to do so. Preserve the education and staff development support - they offer services that cannot be duplicated in every school.
t
7:14 am on Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Good analysis Jane and right on target. Fernbank is the subject not the overall DeKalb County education system and the way it operates.
Jane Stewart
3:01 pm on Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Not sure a private entity could possibly pay these salaries:
Administrator – Director, Fernbank $98,568
Administrator – Administrative Coordinator $91,884
Administrator – Administrative Coordinator $91,884
Support Maintenance $56,402
Support – Technical Support $66,088
Support – Support Services $6,790
Support – Security $48,093
Support – Security $47,150
Support – Security $46,929
Support – Secretary $39,427
Support – Secretary $39,427
Support – Scheduler $43,516
Support – Photographer $67,380
Support – Media Specialist $91,320
Support – Maintenance $47,150
Support – Maintenance $34,276
Support – Maintenance $44,836
Support – Maintenance $33,616
Support – Maintenance $32,426
Support – Maintenance $39,276
Support – Head Custodian $52,091
Support – Geologist $75,430
Support – General Administration $50,520
Support – Gardener $44,836
Support – Exhibit Designer $77,892
Support – Exhibit Designer $69,516
Support – Exhibit Designer $84,720
Support – Exhibit Designer $63,576
Support – Designer/Photographer $66,096
Support – Custodial $31,048
Support – Custodial $29,310
Support – Custodial $31,048
Support – CTSS $49,194
Support – Clerical $7,679
Support – Clerical $37,485
Support – Bookkeeper $27,707
Scott Holt
10:20 pm on Tuesday, May 29, 2012
I always find it amusing when people throw out the salaries of public sector employees as if they were examples of gross excess. It sometimes seems that if they make more than slightly above poverty wage, people think they are over paid. I won't comment on them, though (except one) because I don't know what they do. I am really not in a position to say if they are over or under paid, and I doubt you are either... I suspect you're just throwing them out for emotional impact.
I will, though, challenge one... tell me, just how much should the Director be making? Just how much should someone with 56 direct and indirect reports, a 4.5M budget and accountability for 10s of mill in capital investments make? Well?
I have a little insight into this, because I know that well educated people with a science or engineering background, people who have ZERO budget accountability and no direct reports, can easily make 50K to 80K more working as so called 'individual contributors' (that's slang for 'has no responsibility for anyone else's work') in corporate America. I know because I work for/with people with similar responsibilities in the "private sector" who make 50-80K more. I know Associate professors in engineering and science fields who make 50K more.
So, tell me ... how much?
Now, I may not agree that administrative and support personnel are over paid, but I will agree there are too many of them, far too many.
John
1:59 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
The salaries listed on the state website are inaccurate and inflated in the cases I could check. The support staff of this facility needs to be cut back, and secretaries (like all the overpaid central office support staff in Dekalb) need to get the salaries in line, but all the instructional staff is on the teacher pay scale and earn exactly as much as any teacher with the same degrees and years of experience in teaching.
John
2:01 pm on Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Oh and many of the people listed are no longer employed by the county. They either retired or were laid off. This is an old list.