Latest / Between the Headlines: Columbus / Lobbyist on the Line PLUS Sam Allison Talks School Choice & Consolidation

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Lobbyist on the Line PLUS Sam Allison Talks School Choice & Consolidation · Between the Headlines: Columbus

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_06: From the opinion page of the commercial dispatch, this is Between the Headlines.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is Peter Imes, publisher of The Dispatch.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: One of our hosts of Between the Headlines is the managing editor of our newsroom.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: Typically, we try to keep news and opinion separate, but reporters have a unique insight into the workings of local government, and their analysis can be helpful for readers and listeners.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: The dispatch remains committed to journalistic integrity, and our reporting will always reflect that.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: And now between the headlines.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: At some time in the recent past, a contingent of Colombians and city leadership, they're headed to Jackson, and he said that they were instrumental.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: What the hell did you just say to me?
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_03: This week on Between the Headlines, the Columbus City Council again takes aim at potentially axing our lobbyist as the Worth Thomas consulting firm who we pay$72,000 annually, may or may not be there one month from now, tabled for the moment.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_03: Also on the um show today, we will have Dr.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_03: Sam Allison to talk about education, and there's a lot of material there.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 1:38
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• 3:03
  SPEAKER_03: You are listening to between the headlines with Zach Plair, who, by the way, is missing a bass boat.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_03: So if you happen to see a bass boat out there that belongs to Zach Plair, tips at C Dispatch.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_03: Not mine.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_03: Not yours.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_03: Zach, have you ever been intoxicated enough to drop a boat on Highway 45 and leave it there?
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, but I've never had the boat to drop.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: Well, something had to be going on with that one for sure, because that listen, there's only two options.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: Either it came off of your truck unknowingly, in which case you were probably toasted, all right?
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_03: Or you knew you were toasted and you left.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Opinions are those of the speakers.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_03: So today, the top story that we're looking at is this lobbying agency that's come up from time to time in the past, but uh with a new slate of council members, we're looking at them again.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_03: Where do we begin here?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, worth time as consulting based in Jackson there.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the city uh pays them$72,000 a year to lobby on the city's behalf on the state and federal level.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Rewind to February, where Rusty Green started asking questions.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: Councilman Green and Councilwoman DeChico at the time uh were really the only ones that were on board with um acts in the contract, and um they stayed on board uh despite some pretty hefty questions being asked about what do you do and show your work and where are your receipts and what have you done for us that we couldn't have done ourselves through the delegation.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so the argument that's being presented is that we've seen more invoices than we have receipts, is that correct?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: So fast forward to the new council, Worth Thomas sends their invoices uh for the end of last fiscal year.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Jason Spears is looking at that and going, okay, if we're paying these people$6,000 a month, I've been on the council for going on a hundred days now, and I haven't even heard from these guys.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: And he started asking questions, and it turns out that not only had he not heard from these guys, but neither had Gary Jefferson, neither had Levon Harris, neither had Roderick Smith, and um I'm not sure any of the other councilmen have heard from these guys either while they're sending monthly invoices.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: And so the question became well, I mean, Jason didn't even ask the question first.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: First, he said, I move that we give the 15-day notice to terminate the contract.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now that issue's been tabled.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: That motion wasn't approved, it was tabled instead, but it's coming up again.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_03: So all right, let's talk about the communication factor next.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_03: But before we even go into all of that, um let's look at the money, okay?
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about a fire truck that uh this agency um allegedly helped us get.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_03: We talk about the grant monies, and if you compare the black program, the federal money from the black program.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: If you compare those dollar amounts to the amounts that we're paying them, it's a win.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_03: But it's a win only if, to Rusty Green's point, only if you assume that they get total and complete credit for us landing those funds, right?
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: And so we just don't know if if if these people who by the way, I'm not here to trash them today.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_03: I've heard good things about this firm, but where's the proof?
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: I think that's what's being asked here.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think that that's where everybody kind of is right now.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: And uh had some very interesting conversations with uh city leaders uh on Wednesday about that.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Jason who's saying, I'm calling the delegation and I'm calling uh everybody who would know the answer to this question, and he's saying out and out.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think in the things that the city administration is citing as the lobbyists wins that they were a quote main character in those negotiations.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, I think that the burden is on the consultant at this point to show that no, this is what we did.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is the conversations that we had, this is why that mattered.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I watched their last presentation in February, and I wasn't impressed at the time.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think that they were just kind of they felt like it was a foregone conclusion that they were gonna get it, that they were gonna get to keep that contract in February.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_03: February was a while back.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they better not show up that way this time because you've got people like Gary Jefferson.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: You got well, let me back up.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: You got people like Levon Harris who are going, one, who are these guys?
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_01: What do they do?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And why have I not ever heard from them in a hundred days?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: Then you've got Gary Jefferson, who, by the way, has shown in each and every situation that I've seen, no matter how he ultimately voted on it, that when he votes, it's going to be information that he gathered from people that know.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_01: And what he told me Wednesday was I'm going to these I'm going to the legislature.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to these people that they allegedly talked to and negotiated with, and I'm going to Jamie Garrett, the chief operations officer of the city, and I'm going to ask for paper trail, documentation of their work, not this sort of, oh yeah, we all got this money and we were there in the room.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: No, okay, what did you say?
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: How did that go?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: What how what was the response to that?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: And how do we know it was you?
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so you've got Gary Jefferson asking those types of questions.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: You've got Lavon Harris asking those types of questions, you've got Jason Spears asking those types of questions.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: Rusty Green thinks that this is Christmas time because this was the stuff he was saying in February and it wasn't getting any traction.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And now the majority of the council is looking at this and going, you know, those are good questions.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: They may have good answers, but those are good questions.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it's been a while, and you know, I can definitely feel the attitude of this.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: If they're not actually involved, why are you throwing$72,000 out the window?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, that's a small amount of money when you think of a$20 million budget, but it's still just throwing$72,000 out the window unless they can come and they can show, no, that's not what you're doing.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: The last time when they came in February, they zoomed in.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was very low energy.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: It was very much they weren't even here.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_01: No, it was very much we promise we're we promise we're doing it.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_01: We promise we we promise you're good.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: And everybody was fine with it.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think people are going to be fine with it this time.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, let me go to the other side of this.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: There is a side in the administration and on this council that wants to keep this contract that wants not only for the city to have a lobbyist and to have a lobbyist on retainer, okay, and to have these guys.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Jones and Stewart Jones, Stewart, and Roderick Smith seems to be uh sympathetic to that as well.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, he said we need a lobbyist.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_03: He didn't necessarily say it had to be them, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Well, right.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I want to break down their response their public responses so far, though, in defense of Worth Thomas.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: I spoke with the person who is the front man for uh Columbus's lobbying, uh Celine Baird, uh, with Worth Thomas.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: His response to me was we're gonna come, we're gonna give them a report, we're not gonna make any public comment about it outside of that report, and you can get that report from the city.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: So there doesn't seem to be a lot of interest in saying public we're worth it.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: They're like, we're gonna tell our clients that we're worth it, and our clients can tell you that we are.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's their response.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_03: That sounds like sign the check and mind your business.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: It does, doesn't it?
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_01: So that's their response.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: Vice Mayor Stewart in her defense Tuesday night was very much Will somebody else explain, Jamie, will you explain to these naysayers why we should keep them?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: Didn't really offer a lot of her own back behind that, just Jamie, help me.
• 12:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then she read a list.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: And Jim read a list.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that was pretty well all she said about it publicly.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Stephen Jones, the mayor, it w I interviewed him Wednesday.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't know whether he's seeing the political winds blowing against him here, if he's saying, well, you know, I'm gonna deal with this internally.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what sort of the butt there wasn't a lot of energy in defending these guys.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost like uh, well, they'll rise to the top or they won't kind of attitude.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but he's gonna break the tie if there have to be a lot of things.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, he says, you know, if it if it comes down to it, I'll support him.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: If it if it comes to it, I'll support them.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need a lobbyist.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_01: But this is something that's not in the story that was on the record in this interview, and I want to share on the I want to share on the show.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I asked him, can you give me an example of some sort of deliverable, something that they have done that they have done to help the city in their lobbying effort?
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: And he he thought about it for a second, and this is the example that he pulled from the top of his head.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_01: This is this is the one that came to the surface.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: At some time in the recent past, a contingent of Colombian and city leadership are in Jackson, or they're headed to Jackson, and he said that they were instrumental, Worth Thomas' firm was instrumental in helping the city set up an in-person meeting with Senator Chuck Younger.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: What the hell did you just say to me?
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: So I mean I can call Chuck on the phone, and if it involves food, he'll be there in five minutes.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not certainly not denigrating Chuck Younger, certainly not denigrating the importance of him as a senator, not denigrating the importance of the city getting FaceTime with him while they're in Jackson.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: But what I am saying to you is what you're already on to.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: If me and you wanted to get FaceTime with Chuck Younger, he's gonna do his best to give it to us.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're not gonna have to pay somebody$6,000 a month to help us get it.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And I I have a hard time believing that not one person in that city contingent could text Chuck directly and say, hey, we're gonna be in the in Jackson today.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Can you get can you spare 10 minutes to meet with us?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: And Chuck wouldn't say, Yeah, how about 330?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to pay a lobbyist for that.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And certainly, certainly I I give some grace here where there's there are probably better examples of what they actually have done.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: But when asked, the mayor of the city came up with that.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: If that firm can't even persuade the city of Columbus that they're needed, then you have to ask what good they're doing elsewhere.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: We absolutely need proof here, okay?
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: The people of the friendly city are sick of this stuff, and I'm gonna tell you why.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, Mayor Jones, he said it is crucial, that's the word that he used, that we have these lobbying firms.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_03: The thing is, you have to flesh that out.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: Why are they crucial?
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: We're not asking for perfection, right?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_03: We are asking for straight talk, but instead you have a sitting mayor who not too far ago through the hospital administration under the bus because his police department failed to administer a timely drug test.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_03: And then on top of that, he's having his department heads go through a public information officer, don't talk to Zach directly.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_03: All right, you've got that, and so we have this huge wall of opacity that nobody can see through, and that's not gonna bode well.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm I'm I'm sorry, I'm I'm a little bit I'm imagining Chuck Younger on the phone in the legislature saying, you know what, I wasn't gonna meet with you guys, but I heard from Salim, and because of that, I think I have 10 minutes.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: No, but I mean Chuck is one that in February we flat asked him.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were like, how much do they actually have to do with any of the stuff that they're taking credit for?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: And he was one of the ones that absolutely none.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: And and I'm gonna tell you, in other cities where other cities that we've covered, other counties that we've covered, during the legislative session, there are pre-session meetings where they the lobbyist that is being paid comes in person and hears about the priorities and then talks about how they're gonna pursue them.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's a plan made and they're present for it.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: And then they uh in some cases they give a uh a mid-session report, and in some cases they give a and in all cases just about they give a post-session report.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've seen that over and over and over again, and I've not seen these people do this.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: I've not seen the the Worth Thomas contingent do this for the city.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know whether it has it just hadn't been required.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's on the city, or if they're not willing, that's on the consulting firm.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: So for the next segment, we're gonna bring in Dr.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: Sam Allison.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_03: But before he comes in the studio, let me give kind of a context here.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: We're in an interesting period as far as education goes in Lowndes County.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: We have a hyped up session about to come up in the legislature that will involve school choice.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: It will also involve potential consolidations.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: We don't know what that'll look like yet.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_03: And then also we've got um we've got some changes in the school grades.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: Um if you look at uh there's a link actually on commercial dispatch website that that gives some of these grades, uh, it's some changes, and not all of them are for the better.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh notably uh you look at West Lounge Elementary having gone down uh from a B uh to an F.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's some pretty serious stuff, and uh we'll invite Dr.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_03: Allison to come in and talk facts and figures.
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• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: All right.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_03: For this part of the show, we are pleased to have in the studio today Dr.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Sam Allison, who is the superintendent of Lowndes County School District.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for coming on the show today.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I appreciate the invitation.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_06: It's good to see both you guys.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: And you don't look terribly nervous either.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_06: Well, there's no audience, right?
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: That you can see.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_06: That I can see.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_06: That's what I meant to say.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: I know there's an audience, but well, I I see right here in front of you you've got some stats, and the letter A is on all four of these bars that I'm looking at.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_03: That's a good place to start.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, I knew we were going to discuss some accountability, so I don't I don't rely on my recall knowledge anymore, so I wanted to bring bring stuff to look at.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_06: And the Lance County School District's blessed.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_06: We're blessed with great people, great teachers, students, parents, and and we have achieved well.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_06: Um this year is not where we want to be in some places.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_06: And and as I was talking to someone yesterday, that's really the case every year.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_06: Some some years it sticks out, some years it doesn't.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_06: We we get this information in June.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_06: Um, not necessarily a accountability results.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: We get test scores and and y'all kind of know where it's going based on those test scores.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_06: In June, yeah, we could we can about tell you within a point or two where we're gonna be.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_06: And I I tell people we're data driven because we want our students to be ready for whatever's next.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_06: But it's so much more than one test in the spring.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_06: Um that's where the accountability comes from for the most part.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_06: Now there's there's a few other things and a few other things they're adding that will that will bring more to the table from accountability rating, but but a lot of it is put on that put on that test in the spring.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, I hear it, and we're our own worst enemy as far as we test too much.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_06: Because you you ask a teacher what they get tired of.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_06: They get tired of testing.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: I heard a con a conglomerate amen from our listeners when you said that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_06: Well, and it's because we talk about it too much.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_06: When I was in the building, I had a kind of a rule, probably unwritten rule when I was a principal.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_06: We don't talk about testing until after spring break, you know, as we prepare.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_06: But if everything we do throughout the year is not preparing our kids, because what it is is it's a comprehensive assessment on the standards.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_06: And it is it is rigorous, just like the ACT is rigorous, just like a lot of these industry tests are rigorous.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_06: So we it's not a, in my opinion, it's it's accountability makes us better.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_06: It just can't be the forefront because what we're doing is we're preparing kids for what's next.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_06: And um uh so giving them a test at the end of the nine weeks or at the end of the semester to see where they are, that's always happened.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_06: But when we put so much emphasis on it, it turns into a negative.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_06: And it might be a negative in in some cases.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, and and I wanted to jump in right there on that point.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Lyndons County School District has managed what seven years in a row with an A rating, something like that.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: So you've done that, and you've done that with what you have even recently in some of your comments sort of acknowledged have been changing standards throughout.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: Two-part question here.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_01: One, how has Lyndons County kind of moved with that inconsistency or moved with those changes throughout to maintain that A?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And what does it really say about the quality of the schools and the quality of the students that are being measured and the quality of the teachers that are being measured?
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_06: Well, if you got kids, and I I run into this all the time, grades are very subjective.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_06: You know, you give me a hard, rigorous teacher that pushes kids, the product at the end is probably better.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_06: Um, but if they don't have an A, no one really cares.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I think they care, but to them that that tells a parent, a kid all they want to know.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_06: Um, they they kind of build, there's no perfect accountability model.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_06: And in my 30-something years in education, I've seen a lot in in two different states of change through.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_06: This is not a bad one.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I don't want to bore you with all the parts of it, but we'll talk a little bit about it.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_06: It's it's gonna look at math proficiency.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_06: Now, the key there, what's proficiency?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_06: You know, and I tell that to our teachers and our administrators a lot because to be proficient, and it it kind of varies from test to test.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: And from year to year.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: I got a mathematician friend, and I, and I told him what the highest type of equation I could solve based on my college algebra.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Yeah, you're at like a seventh grade level now.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, oh And again, he's subjective too.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_06: But but proficiency is probably gonna be 50 percent correct, 50 to 60 percent correct.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_06: Well, in the classroom, that's a D or an F.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_06: And so so we have to find that rigor in the classroom, but not bury it in a D or F, or you're gonna have parent conference after parent conference after parent conference.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_06: But the part that I like about this model is the growth.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_06: Growth in math, growth in reading, and you take that percentage out of a hundred, and those are those points.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_06: And then you also have growth of your lowest performers or your bottom 25, and their growth is gonna count in a whole nother category.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_06: And MDE is working for us.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_06: What happened last year was tough for them.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_06: And in my opinion, we probably should have froze something because last year we got our results back.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_06: You know, I just kind of take them at what they are and we start working, you know.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_06: And I guess there were a lot of questions because of some drops.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_06: The places that we dropped, we we those were places of concern.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_06: Now, now should it have caused one of our schools that had been a B for the last five out of six years to go all the way to an F?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't think so.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I mean.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_01: Do you look at uh your principal over there and and and I mean, how do you reconcile that that that that school is an F school when I mean Well There are there are five levels to a test.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_06: You have minimal, which is one, basic, which is two, three, which is passing.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_06: So you can get passing past the third grade gate, past your state test.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_06: It's not proficiency.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_06: And then you have proficient and you had advanced.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_06: Well, that school from every test they took, over 74% of them those tests were were three or better.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_06: So three is one of the hardest places to move because one it just is.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_06: And so we look at all that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_06: We don't make rash decisions on one year.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm in that building enough to know that it it is a well-run school.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_06: It is a data-driven school.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_06: So the biggest negative there is perception.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_06: I had to have some tough, I had to talk to the board and tell them, you know, we're disappointed.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_06: And and that principal probably hadn't had a great night's sleep since we got those results back and figured that out.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_06: But when you hear F, you hear failing.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_06: You hear not very effective, and that's just not fair for the Right.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's not is it is it fair to that identity of that school that they've got aware of that first.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_06: They they really talked several years ago in the legislature about changing that because I can't speak to every F school in the state, but but I'm I'm telling you.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_06: Carries a stigma.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_06: It does carry a stigma, and I don't know that it's a fair stigma.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_06: It needs improvement.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_06: Um, those sort of things are probably better said.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_06: We knew we had some areas of concern because we do benchmark test.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_06: You know, we we after we finished units, we knew students were struggling.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_06: We knew that certain groups were lower than the ones that had been there before.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_06: And I think the the biggest thing that works against West Lounge Elementary, it's small, which can work for you.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, it makes sense.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_06: But if you've got three kids that do worse on one day, where in our our schools that run over 200 kids per grade, more steady.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_06: It's the norm is gonna be the same each year.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_06: You it may ebb and flow a little bit, but there, 30 to 35 kids per grade, five kids makes an unbelievable difference.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_06: At the end of the day, I always said accountability, no matter what makes you better, we're gonna be better there, we're gonna be better across the district because not because yes, we want a good accountability score, but we want our kids to be ready for what's next.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_06: And and even before we got these scores, we were already finding things, hey, what can we do differently?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_06: What what resources are out there that are telling us, you know, this is what you need to do, this is how you need to teach your kids.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_06: You know, the science of reading's been out there for a while, and we have some people that have really embraced that.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_06: And and and and you have to look at the things it's telling you.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_06: Like we, you know, when we learn to read, we probably all just learn to read with a little reader with everybody in our class.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_03: Let's talk about that because what's coming out now is and I believe in the Mississippi miracle.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_03: I believe that is a thing.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: And a lot of people are saying that it's because of phonics, because you know, back in the day, Mississippi used to teach us to decode the sounds and the words, and for the most part, Mississippi stuck with that model, and yet the other states kind of found a different way of doing it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_03: Didn't work out so well for them.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_03: Was it was it the phonics, or was it the fact that our schools reopened sooner, relatively speaking, after COVID?
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: What do you think the Mississippian miracle uh plays into this?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_06: Well, this is Sam Allison's opinion.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_06: Not not data driven, but driven from being in Mississippi for the last twenty plus years.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_06: I think it started with the third grade gate.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_06: Love it, hate it.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_06: The fact that we put a level of co accountability I would like to say we don't need accountability.
• 29:50
  SPEAKER_06: We're gonna do our best for kids regardless, but the fact that every kid has to be to a certain level or they don't get to leave third grade, it made everybody step up their game across the state.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_06: So, um I don't remember how many years ago it was, but probably about 10.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_06: So I think it started with that.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_06: Common core is almost a bad word.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_06: It gets a bad rap.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_06: Haley Barber brought Common Corps to Mississippi along with a a group of Republican governors.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_06: And the idea, especially as a principal, is hey, let's all let's all get on the same play it field, you know, from state to state.
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_06: Instead of every state having their own assessments and their own standards.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_06: And I won't get into why it turned into a bad word, because I I don't I I just don't deal with politics because I just can't in this job.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_06: But from where I sat, what it brought was rigor.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_06: And if you want kids to grow, you have to push them.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_06: Basically, from Mississippi, our eighth grade standards in math turned into what the algebra one standards were.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_06: So we just we we increased rigor all the way down and all the way up.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_06: Now, the same standards we use today, the Mississippi College and Career Readiness, it's the same thing.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_06: It's that they didn't change those very much when they renamed them, but we kept the rigor in place, and our kids rose to where they needed to rise to.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_06: And I knew that we were doing better for our kids.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_06: Did I did I think it would translate to NAPE scores?
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_06: I didn't know.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, because I mean I've given NATE, I not personally, because what are you talking about there?
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_06: NATE, the national assessment of performance.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_06: That's what all those stats are going.
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_06: And they'll pick a handful of schools across state and they send their people in and they give the NAPE test.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_06: And when you see, well Mississippi made this many gains, what's on this national test?
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_06: And you don't get you the they tell you which one of your students get to take it, they tell you the day, and they send the people in to give it.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_06: Um but I'm glad it translated to great scores because it looks good for Mississippi.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_06: But I think I think all those things put together um led to the Mississippi Miracle, as it as our people call it, the Mississippi Marathon, because we don't want it to stop there.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um but I've read the things people calling it a hoax, calling it f and it's not, our kids are better than they were 10 years ago because we're better.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_06: We're being the the the powers to be.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_06: Um because and I tell our people all the time, you know, growth is not a uh it's not a mystery.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_06: The only way you can get to growth in anything is push yourself.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_06: You know, if if and our chor our real challenge for our teachers, what I mentioned ago, is we got to know how to to push them hard and not bury them with with a bad grade or something like that.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_06: And that's those are the best ones that can really get a lot out of your teacher because you want to walk out of that classroom knowing that you've been pushed, but when you know, if you get half the questions right on the ACT, you're probably gonna get a lot of scholarship money.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_06: That's probably gonna be a pretty good score.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_06: Um so we we get too caught up into that sometimes, and we we just got to push our kids and and teach and reteach and and and rigor.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_06: Rigor is where it's at.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, switching gears from accountability to more logistical, practical.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: You've got school choice coming up in the legislature and and some other things.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to wanted to ask you, like, as y'all are looking at that, and y'all looking at that uh possibility, how are y'all preparing for that?
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_01: What is the potential impact on Lowndes County School District if that goes through?
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_01: If that becomes reality in Mr.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_06: I think it could impact all districts, but I don't see a huge impact on Lowndes County.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_06: I see a huge impact on public schools across state that could be detrimental to the gains that our st our state has seen.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_06: Um and the big thing, and I I talked earlier about, you know, I I hate to get into political stuff because I never want to alienate myself from either side of or however many sides there are, because I want everybody to be able to walk in my office and know that I serve them.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_06: I serve those kids in our district, and I, you know, could care less what side of the fence or what you were on.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_06: But um I just think that what we have to do and figure out the best way to do that is as this comes, is tell the tell the whole story.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_06: Um and I think it starts with we've been talking about accountability, and I can remember a certain meet certain meeting that I was in last year at the Capitol, and a certain legislator looked us in the eye and said, we spend this much money on education in Mississippi, we're gonna have accountability.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_06: And I don't disagree with that.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_06: I think we need that.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_06: But if you're gonna, you know, if you're gonna set up a voucher system and and look at Arizona.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_06: I think Arizona has already hit the budget they had and doubled it or tripled it, went from the billions to the trillions, and that's uh again look at the states that are doing it.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_06: One, how are you gonna pay for it?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_06: And are you not gonna have accountability?
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_06: If you if you come up with a voucher system, I think it's unconstitutional from our Constitution, but others may not.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_06: I think that's the only way you can get around.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_06: Hey, you can't give government money to private entities.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_06: But if you were to do that, you know, what what does that say about the accountability?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_06: Whether you're putting it in in uh accounts for parents, for private schools, for homeschool.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um and the private schools are saying they don't want it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_06: Well, they don't want accountability.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_06: And and the other part of that is you know, a private school has the right to accept or deny any kid that they want, you know, whether they and that's they're private.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_03: So are you don't they also have the right to opt out in a typical program as implemented?
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, you know they got, I mean, they're they're they're they have they can do whatever they want to do.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_06: And and parents have the choice to send their kids to any school.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_06: Just they don't really have right now, they don't have the choice for that money to follow them except in a few circumstances.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_06: So I think parents have to know that.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_06: In Lowndes County, you know, our taxpayers put the the majority of the bill, it's about 49 percent.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_06: Um state funds are probably 42, 43 percent, federal funds are in there.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_06: And so you have you have several sides of the choice.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_06: One, the voucher side, the other is so we're gonna let kids that their parents aren't paying that, or if you buy a house in Lows County, you're gonna pay a little bit more.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_06: The school system has something to do with that?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_06: Probably so.
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_06: Um, so is that fair to those taxpayers that we let other taxpayers come in?
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_06: Um, you know, and you'll hear words like capacity.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_06: Well, who's gonna set capacity?
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_06: Um, we we have buildings, classrooms, teachers set for our kids.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_06: Do do we have a little bit of margin there?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah, because we get a lot of kids that come in at during the year.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_06: Um, I just don't think it's very well thought through.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_06: Now, if you look across this state, you see lots of school districts.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_06: You see city school districts, you see county school districts.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_06: There are some counties that have two and three and four districts.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_06: I talked to a local representative the other day and called that was his question.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_06: And I told him, I said, well, you know, in in Lows County, we have about 5,300 students.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_06: I'm sure Columbus is probably pushing 2,000, maybe 2,500.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_06: Um and there are so many more districts around the state that don't have those numbers but have multiple districts.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_06: So and I say all that to say there may be a better system that somebody can come up with, but um I d I don't think that don't no one wants to do that because you know, in Lowndes County we have Caledonia, we have New Hope, and we have West Lounge.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_06: Would that work better under one roof?
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_06: Maybe efficiently, but we don't want to take the school from Caledonia, we don't want to take the school from West Lows.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_06: Now we and and so so you can look at that from a county, but think about it across the state.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_06: And you know, if somebody wants to step up and do that, more power to them.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_06: They're probably their political career will probably be short.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_06: Um but it there's a there's a lot to say.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: I think there is a little bit of politics.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, but you've got, I mean, you're kind of dancing around it, but here's the question.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, school consolidation is another part of what's being talked about here.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_01: And how do you feel about the prospect of Columbus Lounge County school district?
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_06: Well, I always say that that we'll do whatever they tell us to do.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_06: But I as I was told the person that called me the other day, there are a lot of other areas across the state that make much more sense for consolidation than Columbus and Lowndes County.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_06: So I think it would have to be.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, Octabahall did it ten years ago.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_06: And Octabaal had had shrunk to about and they couldn't pay their bills.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_06: I mean, I think that was the biggest thing for for that.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and it was it had to be done through the legislature.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_06: I think everybody knew, but the legislature was the one.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_06: And last year there was a huge list of districts.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_06: Ours weren't on there that they were looking at.
• 39:25
  SPEAKER_06: I say usually it's four or five.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_06: Um and it it never got out of out of committee.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_03: You said there were approximately fifty, three hundred students in the county.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: Is is that that what I heard you say earlier?
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_06: Yes.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm thinking about that, and and this question may come across as a joke, but how many of those 5300 do you think belong to a mailbox sitting out in a cow pasture in the north side of the county?
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because that's kind of our de facto school choice system right now.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_06: So I think Well, here's we work hard to make sure that those are Lowndes County people.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um I can't tell you, I can't give you a percentage because we catch people every week.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_06: And and our job as administrators, I tell our principals this, is when it's brought to you, you investigate it as far as you can.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_06: Um we employ seven SROs, maybe eight.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_06: And when we added the last one, that was one of the things we put out there was we need help with this.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_06: Once we get an address, and I always tell people if you if you think someone is living out of district, we need to find out where their last address was.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_06: And then we need to turn it over to our SRO and they'll go do the things they can do.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: And going back to the consolidation, kind of piggybacking off of something that you said just to clarify, you said that uh it makes sense in other places a lot more than it makes sense in Columbus and Lynds at County.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_06: But from a numbers standpoint.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_06: Right.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_06: So I think before it ever came here, and we would have to really look and see what does that look like in in Columbus and Lowndes County, it would happen in other places.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um with like a smaller district or a district that's in more financial.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_06: And there are many of them.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_06: And so um so I'm one of those, you know, there there are certain things that are concerning, but don't hit that worry button until you you need to.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_06: And I say worry meaning that we would have to figure out what that logistically looked like.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_06: But from from a numbers standpoint, from a financial standpoint, there are many other places in Mississippi that it makes a lot more sense to start with.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_06: And so, as I was, I guess, telling you the day when I got that call, I said, it's gonna happen in these other places before it happens here.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_06: And so we don't have to figure that out.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_06: All we gotta figure out is what we're doing now.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: I want to ask you about the metal detectors.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um, how has that gone?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: Um They're not metal detectors.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, they're weapons detectors.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: So they'll they'll they'll sniff out more than just a gun.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: Well, they s they sniff out shapes.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_06: Okay.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_06: Um they use AAI technology.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_06: It's something that well, let me back up a little bit.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_06: Do I think about those the the worst thing that could ever happen in our world is a school shooting?
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_06: Very unlikely if you look at the numbers, but it's very real too because it does happen.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and we have a lot of things in place.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_06: I don't necessarily think weapons detectors stop the crazy, but it gives us another level.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_06: So what we've been looking at really over the last four years is okay, what could what's out there?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_06: Because you you go to the ball games, you see those lines move pretty fast, and what technology is out there now that cannot impede our day, but that can give us another level of protection.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_06: Um and we came up with with these weapons detectors that they're and there were little hiccups in the beginning.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_06: I think we have a pretty good system right now.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_06: Um, and and we have other districts coming to to see.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_06: Um, yeah, and you hate that that's where we are, but it's more about safety.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_06: Are we doing everything we can do to prevent that terrible thing?
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_06: Um and that that was another step there.
• 43:17
  SPEAKER_06: So um, yeah, we we run every kid that comes into Lows County schools through a through a weapons detector.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_06: They're they're pretty high tech.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_06: They all come with screens.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_06: So if if you do get dinged for something, it's gonna show your picture, it's gonna draw a box where that's it.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_06: We have a place over there, and they'll go check that out and um mark that off, you know.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_03: I've got one more somewhat financially related.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh as unfortunate as it was, the booster club had an embezzlement happen earlier this year, as a lot of us remember.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, you also not related to what you do, but there was that chick that stole money from the Caledonia Park Fund.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh has there been any changes in the oversight process to that?
• 44:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because it seems like there's been a little bit of a shakeup in the way New Hope does football, just from what I've seen.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_06: Well, one of the things that happened when I became superintendent is we we started more oversight because although we really don't have a lot to do with booster clubs and how they spend their money, we do give them the right to raise money and spend it.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_06: And it makes it easier when everything works together.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_06: Um so where we were asking for one statement a year.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_06: We approve fundraisers, we we bring that in.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_06: And we don't bring it in because we bring it in for oversight.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_06: Now, in this particular case, how they got caught, but but we also saw they they took a lot before they get caught because they were turning in bad bad documents, you know, and um or forged documents of of bank statements.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_06: And the key there, and we've stressed this, is oversight within the booster club.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_06: You gotta have checks and balances.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_06: You can't have one person, you know, it's kind of the payoff.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_06: They do all the work, they get to do that.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_06: But I think that it it was a lesson learned for all of them, is that you all of them have bylaws, they're all approved, they all have several steps in order to spend money, deposit money, and I think that was some of those I'm not saying they weren't doing them, but they weren't probably doing them in a way that they should have in place.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_06: But I think it told everybody, hey, you know, you you can have really great people, but if there's opportunity there, even great people make bad mistakes sometimes.
• 45:31
  SPEAKER_01: Well, do you have anything you want to add?
• 45:33
  SPEAKER_06: Appreciate you guys.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_06: I hope I didn't say anything I shouldn't have.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we appreciate you coming on.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_03: I say things I shouldn't have all the time on this show.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_06: And I'm probably hear about it a little bit, huh?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_03: A little bit.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_03: That will do it for this segment.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_03: Dr.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_03: Allison, we thank you so much for joining us on the show here today.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: Well, Zach, um, what did I miss this week?
• 45:59
  SPEAKER_01: Well, our three things to know is number one, a woman in Crawford woke up Monday morning to find an intruder in her bedroom.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_01: Travis Malone, 42, was later arrested for burglary in the case.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_01: Malone has a pretty lengthy wrap sheet for the sheriff's office, and he was wearing an ankle monitor at the time of the break-in.
• 46:20
  SPEAKER_03: You remember that Burger King commercial where the the guy in the plastic King's outfit is creeping in the window all scary like go on.
• 46:31
  SPEAKER_01: Go on.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_01: Number two, work began last week on converting the bottom floor of the depot uh into high-end apartments.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's in downtown Columbus.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_01: Uh owner Gail Gwynnump got a permit for uh from the city to turn the once commercial space into six units, adding residential space to the four apartments already in the building's second floor.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 46:52
  SPEAKER_01: Work should be complete in February.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think Nora Miller will be pleased with that.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_03: She used to talk about the um COVID parties that used to go down in that place.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_01: All right, number three.
• 47:06
  SPEAKER_01: The organizers of Spring Spring's Festival of the Fae are bringing you the harvest market on Saturday from noon to nine p.m.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_01: at 43 Luxon Drive.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_01: What is being billed as a renaissance fair will include vendors, axe throwing, and medieval themed freelance wrestling.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_01: Costumes are encouraged.
• 47:27
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, here, here.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been axe throwing?
• 47:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh dilly dilly.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_03: That's um uh yeah, that can be quite injurious if you're not careful, but as long as you throw it the right direction, all should be well.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_03: So, hey, I want to offer my sincere thanks for all of us.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_03: All of you guys who are listening here today.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, be sure to follow our show, share it, help us get the word out, make our hometown a better place, and always send us your comments tips at cdispatch.com.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: You can also follow me on Facebook or X at D Chisholm Double Zero.
• 48:03
  SPEAKER_03: Leave us a public comment.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_03: Signing off until next week from Catfish Alley Studio and Historic Downtown Columbus.
• 48:11
  SPEAKER_03: Your host has been Zach Plair, and I am David Chisholm.
• 48:14
  SPEAKER_03: Y'all keep it friendly and we'll keep it real.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_00: Opinions expressed on this show are those of the speakers and not necessarily those of the commercial dispatch.