Melanie Burton-Brown Begins Work Today as New Fr. Co. Charter System School Superintendent

The Franklin County Charter School system has a new Superintendent.

Melanie-Burton Brown takes the helm, officially, beginning today.

On January 12, noting their desire to continue the plans developed by Chris Forrer, the Board of Education named Burton-Brown as their sole finalist for the School Superintendent’s position.

Board Chair Robin Cato said at the time they chose Burton-Brown because she is familiar with the strategic plan developed by late School Superintendent Chris Forrer.

In an interview with Burton-Brown in January, she said she agrees with the Board’s desire to continue with the strategic plan Forrer instituted.

“I think we’re doing good work. I think one of the worst things for our District is for somebody brand new to come in with a completely different idea or vision of how things should be and we have to do a 180 and change completely what we’re doing,” Burton-Brown explained. “I don’t think that is what is best for our teachers. I surely don’t think that is what’s best for our students. And so it was important to me to provide that consistency and that balance for the school district.”

Burton-Brown pointed to the hard work that went into developing the five-year Strategic Plan.

“We have four big areas and the first big area was the Charter system and we did that last year. The second big area is increasing student achievement. We work on that all the time. We worked on our balance assessment with our local benchmark. We have developed and implemented a K-12 framework for literacy instruction. And we are in the process of providing professional learning for our teachers on that framework this spring. One of our initiatives there under that goal was our multi-tiered support system for our students and that involves our reading intervention for students who are behind. And we’re going to start doing math interventions in the spring,” she explained.

The fourth goal in the Strategic Plan is resources, operations, and personnel, which she said includes one-on-one technology, improving the delivery of business and financial services, and human resources.

Other goals in the Strategic Plan that Burton-Brown said she will continue moving forward with include the Culture and Climate goal that includes communication and a parents advisory council which Forrer began.