Dougherty superintendent says school system making progress

ALBANY — Dougherty County School Superintendent Butch Mosely was pressed into service as a fill-in speaker for the Albany Rotary Club on Thursday. And in typical Mosely style, he led off by telling the gathered Rotarians exactly what they could expect from him.

“I understand that I was the second choice as your speaker for the day, so you can expect a second-rate speech,” Mosely joked. Then he got serious.

“There are good things going on in the Dougherty County School System,” he said. “When I took this job in 2013 the system was under financial supervision by the State Department of Education and the federal government because of misuse of Title I funds. We had to stroke a check in the amount of $1.2 million to the government because they didn’t think we could manage our finances.”

Mosely, who has 37 years experience in education, was appalled.

“I’ve been the superintendent of several school systems and I’d never seen as big of a mess. It was humiliating and it was embarrassing,” he said. “But last week we got a letter from the state lifting those restrictions. They now trust us to spend their money like it’s supposed to be spent. That relives us of a heavy burden and it proves we are doing things the right way. I couldn’t be prouder.”

The superintendent said improving the district’s abysmal graduation rate is the most pressing issue facing the system.

“We haven’t gotten the 2015 numbers yet, but 2014 was at 66 percent. That is unacceptable,” Mosely said. “This year will be much better with all four high schools making gains in graduation rates. Also 17 of our 23 schools were shown to have made progress in CCRPI (college and career readiness performance index) numbers. We’re making progress, but it’s not going to happen overnight.”

The superintendent also promised to make a strong push toward the establishment of a college and career academy. The initiative was shot down by the school board by one vote in 2012, but he feels the time is ripe to finally make a move in that direction.

After the meetings was over Mosely said that looking back on the last school year, while the system still has more than its fair share of problems, things are better than they were.

“Overall I am pleased with the way our school board, teachers, administrators and staff performed last year. We can be proud of what we accomplished because we were in a pretty deep hole,” Mosely said. “I expect to see better results in the upcoming year.”