What a difference a word can make. In the case of Senate Bill 458 those words are “shall” and “may.” But that problem appears to have been solved.

That difference prompted tens of thousands of phone calls and emails in the past week to local legislators and Gov. Sonny Perdue from Fayette County residents concerned that the ongoing mess with the public school system in Clayton County would filter over into Fayette.

If that were to happen, it would potentially allow an untold number of Clayton students to access the Fayette school system. In its wake would be looming questions of classroom overcrowding and other questions on how Fayette taxpayers would foot the bill.

A town hall meeting Saturday morning called by Sen. Ronnie Chance at Fayette County Commission chambers addressed the current status of SB 458 and how its language had twice changed. Chance and Rep. Matt Ramsey (R-Peachtree City) also provided an overview of the routing of bills through the sometimes cumbersome legislative process and gave an update on the current status of SB 458 in the Georgia House.

Both were optimistic that the revised wording and the unfolding legislative process would preclude a requirement that Fayette take Clayton students. The current language stating that a school system “may” allow out of county students will likely be retained during the remaining four days of the legislative session.

A portion of the 158 residents in attendance included Fayette County School Board member Janet Smola, Assistant Superintendent Sam Sweat and a wealth of elected and appointed officials from Fayette County and its municipalities. By their statements, those attending appeared to have their fears or concerns allayed.

At the outset of the meeting, Chance said Rep. Valencia Seay and Rep. Virgil Fludd had been made aware of the town hall meeting. Chance said both legislators told him they had previous commitments that would prevent them from attending.

Ramsey said SB 458 may become a final product of the House Rules Committee. He said the chairman has been asked that, if it survives the committee process, the bill be considered a Structural Rule which would prohibit another amendment that would put “shall” back in the language. Ramsey said the chairman has agreed to that request.

Chance and Ramsey told the audience that the legislative session has only four days remaining with a large number of bills still in the pipeline.

Chance said SB 458 in its original version months ago was a private school voucher bill from which language relating to public schools was later added. Authored by Sen. Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), the bill was intended to allow students from schools that had lost accreditation to accept a voucher to go to another school, he said.

“This was before the Clayton County thing got as bad as it is currently,” Chance said. “The whole point was that the kids who graduated from a school that’s not accredited cannot qualify for the Hope scholarship. So that was the point behind the intent of the original bill.”

Chance said an amendment was added on the Senate floor that took out the phrase “a school system may accept students based upon space availability.”

“It took out the word ‘may’ and put in the word ‘shall,’” Chance said. “After much discussion, legislative counsel assured us that there was enough leeway in that language to allow the school system to accept or decline. Current law already says a school system can accept a student from another system if they so choose. So we were under the impression that it was the same issue.”

Chance explained that the bill was not voted on or debated and was passed by unanimous consent because it was not considered a controversial amendment, based on the recommendation of legislative counsel.

“After the fact, clearly, we realized last week that there was some ambiguity in that phrase,” Chance said.

With SB 458 having moved over to the House, Chance said he met with Sen. Johnson and others to address the language. On March 21 he received a call from school board member Janet Smola. It was then that Chance and Ramsey began discussions with members of the school board on how to address the problem.

“Rep. Ramsey and I on (March 24) spoke with the bill’s author and Senate leadership and we decided we were going to attempt to amend this bill in the House committee and replace ‘shall’ with ‘may,’” Chance said. “’May’ is a very innocuous term that doesn’t typically have any teeth in it.”

Ramsey told the audience he met with the chair of the House Technology & Science Committee and called all its members. Both Ramsey and Chance contacted Superintendent Jon DeCotis to advise him of their attempt.

“The problem was that the House didn’t meet again until Wednesday. So between Monday and Wednesday, Matt and I got thousands of emails and phone calls and Gov. Perdue got 17,334 phone calls from Fayette County,” Chance said as many in the audience chuckled. “The process has to play itself out and we couldn’t do anything any quicker. And true to our word, as soon as the House committee met, the amendment was offered to strip that language out. So now it reads “may” again, based upon space availability. Those qualifiers provide room for the various systems to accept or deny students from other systems.”