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Gwinnett
school operations division
wins prestigious Oglethorpe Award
By Elliott Brack
editor and publisher
GwinnettForum.com
FEB. 22, 2002 -- Be pleased that the Gwinnett County Public Schools
and its Facilities and Operations Division is a winner of the prestigious
Georgia Oglethorpe Award for 2001. Criteria for this award is the
same for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award. The Oglethorpe
Award is Georgia' highest level of recognition for organizational
performance excellence.
Gwinnett should be pleased since it means more dollars in the pocket
of every taxpayer resulting from efficiency of operations, which
translates into lower taxes. That's reason enough to be proud!
Winning the award is akin to "an organization earning its
Ph.D.," says Victoria Taylor, executive director of the award
program. "It is an award you earn." A rigorous self and
third-party assessment is part of the process.
Organizations that get the Oglethorpe Award must have sound business
practices throughout their operations, plus have demonstrated a
history of continuous evaluation and improvement. The winners are
judged on such qualities as leadership, strategic planning and process
management, etc.
Let's put it another way. In an era when some Georgia school systems
spend as much as $100-130 per square foot to build schools, Gwinnett
routinely does this for $65 per square foot. Now, that's a savings!
By consistently completing new schools and enlarging older schools
at lower costs, that means less taxes for Gwinnett property owners!
All this is happening, mind you, in Georgia's largest public school
system, one now serving 116,987 (January figures) students! It's
done with the 1,200 employees of the Facilities and Operations Division,
larger than many construction firms in the state.
A recently completed (1997 SPLOST) building program for Gwinnett
school promised 809 classrooms for $368 million. But with the Gwinnett
school building program, the system got 904 classrooms for the same
money. That's efficiency!
How does the Gwinnett system do it? It's a combination of factors:
* Good management.
* Utilizing prototype facilities for elementary, middle and high
schools. One guy put it this way: "We use the same plans, just
change the site."
* Employing pre-qualified contractors, through a non-exclusive system.
* Professionally tracking the job with those involved, through continuing
"partnering" meetings.
These days, the Gwinnett System is concentrating its activities
on eight new schools in the county. Before the current SPLOST tax
funding is exhausted, it will have refurbished and enlarged 40 already-existing
schools.
Jim Steele, chief operating officer of the system and the division
leader, feels winning the Oglethorpe Award is a significant milestone
in his division's continuous improvement journey. "More than
10 years ago, we began to implement private industry strategies.
We realized that our strategies needed to encompass measurement
against the best organizations and practices within private industry,
not just looking at what other school systems were doing. This has
led us to model our practices after the best business structures
we could find."
Even applying for the award was helpful, Mr. Steele feels. "It
made us study the way we do business and look for ways to improve,"
he says.
The award will be presented March 19, 2002 at the Georgia Oglethorpe
Conference in Savannah. Other winners include Turner Studios, the
Georgia Department of Defense and Stephens County Middle School.
The award is a tangible evidence of the high quality of the Gwinnett
school operations. That's reason enough to be proud. Congratulations
to you, Jim, and your staff!
FEEDBACK
2/22: Snellville
councilwoman questions
Mayor Harrell and discretion abuse
Editor, the Forum:
This is to the citizens of Snellville:
Mayor Brett Harrell has gone too far. I will not stand by and let
him damage my good name and my family's good name.
Mayor Harrell is more concerned about poor public image. He is
attempting to bolster himself by defaming others. This time he has
gone too far. He
had better be prepared for a legal battle. I will not tolerate his
childish bullying antics anymore!
This blatant abuse of discretion on his part has caused me to respond
to the most "hurtful" and "mean spirited" action
that I have ever witnessed. In
all of the 25-plus years that I have devoted to Snellville, I have
never seen anything like this!
It's even possible that Mayor Harrell may have decided that he
needed some "juicy headlines" because he's concerned about
his upcoming commercial zoning on his property on Georgia Highway
124. This is probably going to be very controversial. Nothing he
does will ever surprise me again.
Mayor Harrell's attack on me is nothing more that an attempt to
restrict my effectiveness in serving the Snellville citizens that
elected me to office. Mayor Harrell may have thought that by publicly
embarrassing me and my family that I might resign. He will soon
find out that his resignation will
come before the thought of me ever resigning.
These past few days have been extremely hard for my family to endure.
But know this: I have served this great city on the ball fields,
in the schools, on the PTA's, in the park, in the libraries and
as an elected official, for the past 30 years. I have brought integrity
to the office of councilwoman of the City of Snellville.
I have no idea why the mayor has written these "untruths"
about me. You all can be assured that as your Councilwoman and friend,
I will demand a meeting with the mayor (who has the SAME constitutional
authority as I do), and the department directors to resolve this
issue. The citizens as well as the city employees are much too important
to me to let this issue stay "unresolved".
I ask for your prayers of support and may God bless each of us!
-- Deborah Rich, Snellville Councilwoman
THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
About What Was Meant
"It is my belief that there are 'absolutes' in our Bill of
Rights, and that they were put there on purpose by men who knew
what words meant and meant their prohibitions to be absolute."
-- The late U.S. Supreme Court Jurist Hugh Black, 1962.
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issue to Gwinnett Forum
for future publication.
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