Statement from Garth Moss, Thomasville City school superintendent 1-26-2022.
After 35 years in public education, Thomasville Superintendent of Education Garth Moss has announced his retirement.
“Thank you to the school board members who put their faith and trust in me to run this school system three-and-a half years ago,” he said. “I also want to thank all of the custodians, maintenance staff, CNP staff, bus drivers, teachers, administrators, and central office staff who make a difference in the lives of our students every day. This job has never been about putting the spotlight on myself, but it has always been about trying to give our students the best chance to succeed in life. The many accomplishments over the last three-plus years have put the Thomasville City School system in a much better place to continue to be successful. Many of these accomplishments are listed below: “We are financially sound. We have been able to balance our budget and have seen our reserve grow to over two months. We had the first budget to finish in the black in over five years in 2020, and the 2021 budget was a break-even budget.”
• Thomasville Middle School reopened and is flourishing once again.
• We opened a new Culinary Arts program at Thomasville High School that has served over 200 students the past two years.
• We have partnered with Coastal Alabama Community College to offer additional dual enrollment classes for our students. This includes new career technical classes as well as college prep classes.
• We also partnered with Coastal Alabama Community College to secure a virtual reality program to train potential workers and recruit students into these potential jobs.
• We sought and obtained numerous grants to fund projects at all three schools.
• While continuing to maintain a graduation rate of above 90 percent, we have seen the three-year average College and Career Readiness score for our system improve from 58 percent to 87 percent.
• We set up a partnership with the District Attorney’s office to start a program called the Helping Families Initiative, which has been a huge success in addressing student attendance issues as well as getting our families the help they need.
• The chronic absentee rate for our students has dropped from over 20 percent to around 10 percent and was projected to be less than 10 percent when COVID shut us down.
• PTO programs are thriving at all three schools, and they continue to help with projects at all of our schools as well as supporting our teachers.
• We hired parent liaisons at all three campuses to help with community and parental engagement.
• We continue to work daily to improve our reading and math scores on our new state assessment. Student intervention programs are now in place at all of our schools.
• We introduced a peer helper program on all three campuses.
• We have added a full time on-site mental health specialist to our system as well as a full-time behavior specialist who serves to meet the needs of our students.
• We added a math coach at Thomasville Elementary, and we funded it by a state grant.
• We purchased a new K-8 comprehensive math textbook program for TES and TMS.
• We added computer science offerings at both Thomasville High and Thomasville Middle School.
• All of our athletic teams have continued to flourish with every program represented in the AHSAA playoffs during the 2020-2021 school year. This trend has continued in 2021.
• Our Mighty Tigers Marching Band program continues to grow in numbers, and a middle school band is once again being offered.
• New LED lighting has been installed at Thomasville High School in all classrooms.
• New roofs have been installed at Thomasville High and Thomasville Elementary, and the roof over the Thomasville High kitchen will be replaced this spring.
• HVAC units were added in the Thomasville High kitchen area.
• Our $3.2 million dollar energy saving project will take place this spring that will include new energy efficient HVAC units at Thomasville High, portions of Thomasville Middle, and Thomasville Elementary. This includes a state-of-the art energy control system as well as building envelope upgrades at all three campuses.
• New energy efficient LED lights were installed at D.F. Anderson Stadium as well as the Thomasville High gym.
• New fencing and foul poles were added to the Thomasville High baseball field.
• Three new school buses were added to our fleet.
• New sound systems were added at D. F. Anderson Stadium, the Thomasville High and Thomasville Elementary gyms, and will soon be added at the Thomasville High baseball stadium.
• All of our classrooms have state of the art Promethean/Viewsonic boards.
• A sensory room to meet the needs of our special needs students was added at Thomasville Elementary.
• A new gym floor was added at Thomasville Elementary.
• A paved walking track was added at Thomasville Elementary.
• HVAC units were replaced at the Thomasville High football fieldhouse and added to the Jan Overstreet softball complex.
• New skid resistant flooring was installed in portions of Thomasville Elementary.
• New carpet was installed in the Thomasville High School library.
• The nurse offices at Thomasville High and Thomasville Elementary were upgraded and remodeled.
• A covered walkway and handicapped accessible ramp were added between Thomasville High and Thomasville Middle School.
• A beautification project was completed at the front of Thomasville High School.
• We added the “breakfast in the classroom” to all three campuses that allowed all of our students to have access to free breakfast.
• We offered ACT Bootcamp to our Thomasville High students, and the participants received a fee waiver that paid for them to take the ACT test.
• Intervention teachers at Thomasville Middle and Thomasville High to help our struggling students. Classroom reduction units were added at TES to lower class sizes in K-1.
• A new phone and bell system was added for the entire system.
• Our technology infrastructure system was upgraded for the entire system.
“Just as I promised the board when I was hired, we employed as many local teachers as we possibly could,” Moss said.
“A new teacher professional development program and mentoring program was established for the entire system.
A professional development program to grow our own school leaders was started district wide,” he said. “Professional development was conducted and continues to take place on the science of reading and phonics at Thomasville Elementary for our teachers.
“I am extremely proud of the way our system has worked to keep the doors open whenever possible during the COVID pandemic. We continued to offer school five days-a-week when many other systems chose to go totally virtual or go to some type of blended learning schedule. The work that was done by our faculty and staff to meet the needs of all of our students was nothing less than remarkable considering everything that was going on during this pandemic. We always found a way to make it work and to also try and give our students the best experience we could give them. We found a way to make prom, graduation, theater, sports, and band, as well as numerous other activities, to be carried out safely.
“My last day to serve as Superintendent will be June 30, 2022,” Moss said. "At my recommendation to ensure the continued success of the Thomasville City Schools, I suggested to the board that I continue to serve as a consultant to the new superintendent until the end December of 2022. Once again it has been my privilege to serve and lead the Thomasville City School system over the past three-plus years. Thank you again for the opportunity to serve the students of Thomasville City Schools.
“I am proud of the progress we have made during my service here. I pray that the people of this great city will unite behind the next leader of this school system.”