December 2021 State Board of Education Meeting

The State Board of Education met for committees Wednesday, December 8^th and the full board meeting Thursday the 9^th. Most of the discussion for items occurred during the committee meetings. Click here for the full agenda.

In the Budget Committee most of the items were routine. One item that brought some discussion was the RESA Mental Health Awareness Training item This grant allows funding to be redirected in full to the RESAs. RESAs can decide how they want to use the money for mental health and awareness by having the ability to use vendors of their choosing.

The Rules Committee met and the items that garnered most discussion were the Standards for Personal Finance and Economics and the repeal of the Rule for Guidance Counselors and bringing it up to today’s definitions by the approving of the School Counselors Rule. 

District Flexibility & Charter Committee: One of the 2 items in the committee was Georgia Principles and Standards for Charter School Authorizing as required by House Bill 430 (O.C.G.A. 20-2-2063.3) from the 2017-2018 legislative session. This item creates standards and principles for all 3 charter authorizers, the local school board, the State Charter Schools Commission and State Board of Education. These standards were created to ensure continuity among the 3 authorizers when considering charter applications.

Lauren Holcomb, Executive Director of the State Charter Schools Commission presented their annual report as required to the Flexibility Committee. Her presentation ranged from performance data to demographics, financials, operations, and growth within the approved state charter schools. 

The Department of Education introduced a new hire for the new position of Military Student and Family Specialist, Rachel LaVoie.

The State Board is working on 2 rules for student transportation: FBO 160-5-3-.17 Use of Alternative Vehicles for the Transport of Specified Student Groups and FBO 160-5-3-.02 Contracted Transportation Services. The State Board expressed concerns over student safety and security in both rules and plan to work with the GaDOE to revise the language and will likely post both rules for initiation in January.

On Thursday, the State Board of Education meeting was held and moved fairly quickly. Dr. Dwight “Ike” Reighard, President & CEO of Must Ministries delivered the inspiration. All items were approved with little or no discussion. The slate of 2022 officers were approved which are as follows. Chair, Jason Downey, Vice Chair, Dr. Stan DeJarnett and Vice Chair of Appeals, Leonte Benton. A special thanks to Scott Sweeny for serving as Chair of the SBOE for the last 2 years especially through the pandemic.

Finally, a big congratulations to the newest State Board member for the 2^nd Congressional District, Mr. Frank Griffin of Lee County and Past President of GSBA.

Date of the next meeting will be January 13, 2022. Click here for the SBOE 2022 Calendar.