Education Archives

The tentative budget to be presented next week to the Barrow County Board of Education will include a proposed property tax rate hike of eight percent. The move would bring the system’s tax rate to a total of 20 mills from the current 18.5 mills. Twenty mills is the maximum allowed for school systems in Georgia. Although the BOE won’t set the final tax rate until the fall after the digest is completed, it has to set its budget in June. School budgets run on a fiscal year cycle that begin July 1.

The Glenwood Barrow County High School Alumni Association has rescheduled its strategic planning session for 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 23, at the Winder Community Center. The group, comprised of graduates of the segregation-era Glenwood elementary and high School, is planning a full review of the Barrow County Board of Education over its recent refusal to name the new middle school in Statham in honor of the first principal of the Glenwood school.
Meanwhile, in another new development, a second community-based group has formed and plans to ask the BOE to allow it to use the soon-to-be-vacated middle school in Winder as a services-driven community center.
The concept of the Glenwood Barrow Community Historical and Educational Foundation is to bring together in a single location services currently provided by various non-profit agencies around Winder such as the Boys & Girls Club of Winder-Barrow County.
For the full story, see the Barrow Journal.

As they begin their spring budget processes, Barrow County’s government and school officials are facing tough choices. For the fifth straight year, the tax digest — which is the compilation of the taxable value of all real estate in Barrow County — is expected to decline. No one knows at this point how far the drop will be. Chief appraiser Cecil Highfield has said the school system’s recent estimate of an additional 10-percent decline is “somewhere between the best-case scenario and a middle-of-the-road scenario.”
County and school officials have managed to keep operations afloat during the five-year economic downturn by making significant spending cuts. The county government’s cuts included two rounds of layoffs and multiple salary cuts. The school board’s most visible austerity measures included teacher furlough days and a shortened school calendar. But a tax hike by the BOE may be in the future. The general consensus of board members Tuesday night was to keep a possible tax rate hike on the table as an option for FY2014, which starts July 1, but to wait until after the 2013 Tax Digest is complete in August before setting the actual BOE rate.
For the full story, see the April 10 issue of the Barrow Journal.

Due to ongoing budget struggles by school systems around the state, the Georgia Department of Education has waived all class-size restrictions for the upcoming school year. However, in a resolution approved Tuesday night by the Barrow County Board of Education, local teachers would face increases of no more than three additional students, the limit already allowed under the Barrow school system’s charter. Before the vote, BOE member Rickey Bailey asked for clarification because of concerns expressed to him by teachers.
“There is a rumor out there that is not reasonable,” he said. “I would like to quash that tonight.”
Superintendent Wanda Creel said that even though the approved local resolution allows up to three additional students per class, she doesn’t anticipate changing the current “plus two” practice.