By Stuart Bennett

It seems that every month we start this report with a comment on the meeting structure for the monthly state board meeting and this month will not be an exception.  The board followed its traditional two day format, but moved the meeting forward by a day to Tuesday and Wednesday. They made this change for this month so that the Superintendent and many members of the state board could attend a College and Career Ready Policy Institute in Nashville, Tn.  The Charter, Budget and Rules Committee meetings on Tuesday morning though uneventful were very busy as the board prepared for a two month hiatus as they suspend regular operations for December to have a planning retreat.

The rules committee agenda contained 20 action Items which included:  the adoption of three rules, the repeal of two more, initiation of a rule governing the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program and fourteen multiple system waivers. The three Rules the state board adopted this month were:

(1) Rule 160-5-1-.33 Investing in Educational Excellence (IE2): local Educational Agency (LEA) Contracts for Flexibility and accountability to Improve Student Achievement.

(2)  Rule 160-5-1-.18 Competitive Interscholastic Activities 6-12.

(3)  Rule 160-4-2-.31 Hospital/Homebound (HHB) Services.

The board repealed State Board Rule 160-5-1-.19 Grades 6-8 Interscholastic Activities Grades 9-12. and Rule 160-4-2-.31 Hospital/Homebound (HHB) Instruction because the revisions to these rules were so extensive and re- adopted the aforementioned rules to replace them.

A new State Board of Education Rule 160-5-1-.34 GEORGIA SPECIAL NEEDS SCHOLARSHIP PROGRAM was initiated this month clarifies the implementation of O.C.G.A. § 20-2-2110 as signed into law on May 18, 2007 created the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program, which allows parents of eligible special needs students to transfer their children to another public school, public school system, state school, or authorized participating private school.

As you can see, the board had a full slate of rules to take action on this month, but that's not all.  In addition to these policy actions the board approved 13 system waivers ranging from one that  relaxes the 180 days of instruction requirement  to address last month's  flooding in Paulding County; class size waivers for 26 additional systems; an instructional program waiver so that Haralson county could adopt a standards based report card; relaxation of the 65% requirement for eight systems; to a waiver for a relaxation of the 5 out of 6 segments so that guidance counselors can provide direct instruction in eight systems.  View the specific details of all of these Items by clicking on Rules Agenda and follow the links to each item.

The board failed to take action on the only Charter item a request from the Odyssey School that they be allowed to submit a petition to the new Charter Schools Commission. However, the conversation from previous month's Charter Committee meetings regarding the role of the state board and the newly formed Charter Schools Commission mandated by HB 881 continued to dominate this month's meeting.

The Budget Committee agenda contained 15 items for the consent agenda: fourteen of which were federal title grants. Follow this Budget Agenda link, click on Budget Items for the details of each of these actions.

The next meeting of the Georgia State Board of Education will be January 6th &7th, 2010.