Wednesday, January 1, 2003
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Wednesday, January 1, 2003 |
Another busy year for Fayette schoolsBy MONROE
ROARK
Continued school system growth and accolades for individual students and schools were a way of life in Fayette County during 2002. Among the highlights: Robert Huefner, a student at McIntosh High, was named in December the national winner of the Wendy's High School Heisman, beating out more than 13,000 other students nominated in October. Huefner is class president and editor of the school newspaper as well as co-captain of the varsity soccer team. He has earned varsity letters in football and cross-country as well as soccer. Off campus, he was an officer on the Youth Advisory Board and has volunteered in a local nursing home and soup kitchen. Each year, principals, athletic directors, teachers and counselors can nominate a male and female student from their school for the award. Nominated students are required to be seniors with a "B" average or better and must take part in one of 32 sports sanctioned by the National Federation of State High Schools. Huefner got to take home a crystal trophy and McIntosh High School received $2,500. While in New York City, he also attended the college-level Heisman award ceremony. Huefner is the first winner from the Southeast in the nine-year history of the award. Fayette County opened two new elementary schools in the fall of 2002. Cleveland Elementary is on the western edge of Fayetteville, just south of Ga. Highway 54 on Lester Road. Sara Harp Minter Elementary is south of Fayetteville on Ga. Highway 85. Next to Sara Harp Minter Elementary is the future home of the county's fifth high school. Whitewater High School's campus will open in the fall of 2004, but the school board decided a few months ago to open the school a year earlier at the LaFayette Educational Center, to relieve overcrowding at Fayette County High and allow rising ninth-graders the option of starting their high school years at Whitewater. Construction of the Whitewater campus is budgeted at just over $23 million. The school board also recently named McIntosh High principal Greg Stillions the new principal at Whitewater, a post he assumed Jan. 1. Dates and times for 2003 graduation ceremonies were officially approved in November by the Board of Education. All four of the county's high school will observe graduation Friday, May 23. Ceremonies for Sandy Creek and Starr's Mill will begin at 6 p.m., while those for Fayette County and McIntosh will start at 8 p.m. Fayette students posted impressive numbers as a group in recent results from the state's 2002 Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests. More than 90 percent of Fayette's students are meeting or exceeding the standard in all curriculum areas tested under the CRCT, according to numbers released in November by the school system. The CRCT tests students on their knowledge of Georgia's Quality Core Curriculum. Student scores are placed in one of three categories for each content area: does not meet the standard, meets the standard, exceeds the standard. The school millage was lowered, from 21.783 to 21.694, but public hearings were required because of the possibility that reassessments could still cause some homeowners' tax bills to go up. School system comptroller Jim Stephens pointed out that the millage has dropped significantly in recent years, as it was as high as 23.99 a few years ago. The millage decrease has meant a drop in about $7 million in revenue to the school system over a few years ago, he said. Two changes on the school board loom in 2003, with a new member coming in and a new chairman to be chosen. Mickey Littlefield, who has served as chairman the past two years, decided not to run for a second term in Post 5, and Lee Wright, a former member of the Tyrone Planning Commission, was unopposed in the race to succeed him. Greg Powers, the incumbent in Post 4, ran again and was also unopposed. The school board voted in April for a "balanced" calendar of sorts for the 2003-04 school year, after considering a number of different proposals. A five-day break for Thanksgiving and another in February are among the changes, with Christmas and spring break taking place as they do now. School starts Aug. 11 and ends May 28, 2004. The school system's budget for 2002-03, approved last June, came in at just under $141 million, a 4-percent increase from the previous year. An interesting item in the new budget was the fact that no money was earmarked for new trailers. Teachers got a 3.25 percent raise in the new budget, while classified staff people received raises of 2.25 percent. The system added about 60 new positions in 2003, including a "crisis counselor" and a psychologist. Art teacher Lucy Wicker of Peeples Elementary took home the coveted title of Fayette County Teacher of the Year for 2001-02 and will be Fayette's contender for this year's Georgia Teacher of the Year award. She received the county award in April.
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