Below is the OCR text representation for this newspapers page.

36 Pages 3 Sections, Plus Preprints A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. Winder, Barrow County Georgia 50« Copy Wednesday, March 8, 2017 Barrow Briefs BOE accreditation meeting set for today The Barrow County Board of Education will hold a called meeting at 3 p.m. Wednesday, March 15, to hear a report on accreditation of the system. The meeting will be in the board room at the central office. A group of people from AdvancED. which is an accred iting agency, will be in the schools from March 12-15 to review the school district. The district must be accredit ed every five years, David Bee- land, the schools’ federal pro grams director, told the board. Beeland said the group will observe classes in six schools that were not visited at the last re-accreditation in 2012. The group will make a pre liminary report to the board Wednesday. It will provide an “initial quality score.” It will include the impact of teaching and learning, lead ership capacity among the staff and use of resources, he explained. Board members also will be interviewed as part of the visit. They will be interviewed in groups of three members for 45 minutes Wednesday morning. Questions about accredita tion should be sent to Beeland, david.beeland@barrow.kl2. ga.us or call 770-867-4527. BOC retreat set for Saturday The Barrow County Board of Commissioners will hold its annual strategic planning retreat Saturday, March 11, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the Carl Vinson Institute of Government. 201 North Milledge Ave., Athens. The meeting is open to the public. Index: Church News 10A Classifieds 8-9 B Legals 4-11C Obituaries 11A Pets of the Week 3C Public Safety 7-9A Sports 1-4B Mailing Label Below 8 14 5 4 1 7 ‘Master plan’ for Sims school property in works, per official Large amount of property remains undeveloped By Ron Bridg'eman News-Journal Reporter The Barrow County school system will begin planning for developing the Sims Academy property. Joe Perno, assistant superin tendent for system operations, told the board the site “still (has) a large amount of property” that is undeveloped. The school district will seek proposals from architects and construction managers to pre pare development plans for the property this spring. The systems operation office will develop information to seek proposals from design and con struction professionals. He said the district will appoint a committee to review those pro posals. Board members agreed one of their members should serve on that committee. Perno said Tuesday he would expect the committee would make a recommendation this spring to the board for an archi tect and construction manager. The architect and construction manager chosen would help the district develop a “master plan” for the site, Perno said. The school system has 93 acres at Sims Academy, includ ing the property for that facility. Theoretically, the district could build two more schools, but that would depend on the grade con figuration. Perno said developing the mas ter plan could take six months to a year. It would be late in 2018 before any construction could start, and it could be later than that. He said Tuesday the priori ties for development can change over time. “A year or two ago we would have said that elementary (schools were the need). Now, we aren’t so sure,” Perno said. The school district’s two high schools, Winder-Barrow and Apalachee, have 1,914 and 1,699 students respectively. It also has three elementary schools with more than 900 students. They are Statham. 970; Holsenbeck, 919: and County Line, 904. After the 120th day of school, Feb. 17, the district had 13,603 students, an increase of 226 over the same time last year. See BOE on Page 12A Hice at Apalachee HICE VISITS APALACHEE HIGH SCHOOL U.S. Rep. Jody Hice talked about an average day in Congress and answered questions from students at Apalachee High School on Friday morning. Hice told the students about why and how he decided to run for Congress. Photos by Ron Bridgeman Congressman during speech to students: Politics requires citizen involvement By Ron Bridg'eman News-Journal Reporter The U.S. political system “does not work without the involve ment of the people.” U.S. Rep. Jody Hice told government stu dents at Apalachee High School last week. “It’s our country. It’s our turf.” Hice told the AHS students. Hice spoke to about 200 students for about 30 minutes. He talk ed about an “average day” in Congress, his district and answered questions from the stu dents. The students pre pared 10 questions for Hice about issues of the day, and five of them were asked before he had to leave, Emily Reynolds, a junior, was the first questioner. She asked what made him inter ested in politics. Hice recounted two issues that brought him attention, the fight to keep the 10 Com mandments posted at the Barrow County Courthouse and IRS regulations about how explicit ministers can talk about politics from the pulpit. Hice said he was a pastor for 30 years. He hosted a radio talk See Hice on Page 2A ONE-ON-ONE Jody Hice, congressman for the 10th District, talks with Grace Gerely at Apalachee High School last week. Listening to the conversa tion is Jessi Hand. Hice spoke to government students at the high school. He was at the school for about 30 minutes. School fundraisers generate questions, debate By Ron Bridg'eman News-Journal Reporter A new policy about solic itations and procedures for handling money gen erated some discussion at last week’s and Tuesday’s Barrow County Board of Education meetings, most of it about how to avoid mismanagement of money and recordkeeping. Jennifer Houston, assis tant superintendent for business services, told the board the new policy will “separate” school employ ees from handling money and doing the bookkeeping. She said the policy pro vides “more timely notice” for getting receipts from fundraisers into the bank and records to the central office. It also gives the See Debate on Page 3A Community mourns loss of Teasley Winder and Barrow County are mourning the loss this week of longtime community servant Doro thy Teasley, who died Sun day at 71. Teasley volunteered her time with the Barrow County Woman’s Club, the Georgia Business Educa tion Association, Georgia Association of Educators. National Education Associ ation, GAE Black Caucus, NEA Black Caucus, Wal ton Association of Educa tors and Career Educational Association. She was a board member of the local Boys & Girls Club. The Tree House. Inc. and the Glenwood Alumni. Teasley, who was men tioned near the end of Tues day’s Winder City Council meeting, was also instru mental in the annual local Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. See Teasley on Page 2A