Barrow news-journal. (Winder, Georgia) 2016-current, March 28, 2018, Image 1

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Newspaper Page Text36 Pages 3 Sections, Plus Preprints A Publication of MainStreet Newspapers, Inc. Winder, Barrow County, Georgia 50« Copy Wednesday, March 28, 2018 How big a problem is bullying? Topic a point of discussion at Tuesday school board meeting By Ron Bridg'eman News-Journal Reporter Barrow Briefs Comp plan workshops Two Barrow County Com prehensive Plan public work shops are scheduled for Thurs day in Winder. Residents’ input will be used to update the county comprehensive plan, a long-range plan that is used to guide local goals and decisions related to land use, housing, economic development, natu ral and historic resources, and community facilities. Residents can attend either the afternoon or evening workshop, both of which will have the same for mat. The afternoon workshop is scheduled from noon to 1:30 p.m. at the Center for Inno vative Teaching (old Russell Middle School building), 84 West Midland Ave, The evening workshop is set for 6-7:30 p.m. at the Barrow County School System’s Professional Develop ment Center. 189 West Athens St. Apalachee FFA plant sale set The Apalachee High School FFA plant sale will be this weekend at the greenhouse just behind the stadium. Hours of operation will be Friday from 3-6 p.m. and Saturday from 9 a.m. to noon. The offering includes sever al varieties of tomatoes and peppers as well as easy wave petunias and vinca. A small selection of handcrafted furni ture will also be available. Library board of trustees meeting set The Barrow County Board of Library Trustees will be meeting Monday. April 23. at 4 p.m. at the Statham Community Center. 1928 Railroad St. All meetings are open to the public. Index: Public Safety 7-8A Opinion 4-6A School news 7-8, 10B Church News 10A Classifieds 3-4C Legals 5-11C Obituaries 11A Sports 1-6B Mailing Label Below 8 *0 4879 14541 7 A report on discipline at the Barrow County Board of Edu cation work session Tuesday became a discussion about bul lying in the school district. “I don’t know what’s more important (than this subject).” board member Rolando Alvarez said. He suggested that money and time spent on the subject would be worth moving resourc es from other areas in the school district. The City of Winder is plan ning to move forward with a new downtown parking lot that would include the permanent closure of North Jackson Street between East Midland Avenue and East Candler Street to make room for parking spaces and a public commons area. The city hosted a public meet ing at the Winder Communi ty Center to gather input on its plans for the new commons space and public parking lot The Town of Carl is plan ning a special election May 22 to fill the vacant mayoral seat following Mayor Joshua Godfrey’s resignation earlier this month. Godfrey stepped down March 15 for personal and Vice chair Lynn Stevens said bullying and harassment are “symptoms of a larger prob lem.” She said students are not born hating people or naturally bullies. Those are learned attri butes, she said. She said the schools — “because we have to do every thing else,” she said — need to teach students “the importance of being nice.” She said a teacher of the year candidate in the district did not have discipline problems that other teachers did because she as well as the street closure. The new lot, which would be around 50 spaces, would require the demolition of four existing buildings along North Broad Street, East Midland Avenue and North Jackson Street — includ ing ones currently occupied by Goofball Graphics and Ameri can Pest Control. The addresses are listed as 77, 79 and 83 North Broad St. and 64 North Jackson St. The Winder Historic Preserva tion Commission voted March 13 to approve the demolition and the request could appear family reasons, less than three months after he took office in January. He defeated incum bent David Brock in an elec tion in November, 24 votes to 19. The town council voted last week to call the special election. spent the first week of school “not teaching a thing except how to get along with each other.” Matt Thompson, director of student and data services, out lined the district’s discipline reports for 2017 compared to the state average and to a compara ble group of districts to Barrow in size, budgets and demograph ics. In broad categories, such as drugs and weapons, interperson al issues and order violations, he said Barrow is generally lower than the state and comparable before City Council as early as its meeting on Tuesday, April 3, city administrator Donald Toms said. While the city has released preliminary conceptual plans, final engineering plans would take an additional six to nine months to complete and con struction wouldn’t begin until very late this year or early 2019. Toms said. According to the preliminary drawings, some of the commons area features would include open green space, benches and Qualifying began Monday at city hall, 1690 Carl-Beth- lehem Road, and runs through Thursday. Qualifying hours are Wednesday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Thursday from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Qualifying is $60 and open only to town district figures. In the “overall disciplinary incident rate,” he said Barrow has lower numbers. Barrow had 232.2 incidents per 1,000 students. The state rate was 373.4 and the comparable districts were at 306.8 per 1,000 students. Board member Connie Wehu- nt flatly said, “I don’t buy all of this. We have a lot of bullying going on in our schools. We have a lot of violence in our schools.” She said parents who talk See Bullying on Page 2A New high school to be ‘magnet’ for arts, sciences By Ron Bridg'eman News-Journal Reporter The new high school planned for the Sims Acad emy property is expected to be an arts and sciences magnet school. Joe Perno. assistant superintendent for system operations for the Barrow County School System, told the county board of education Tues day. He said plans still are to start grading on the site by summer. The first phase of the building is expected to be complete by the summer of 2020, he said. The first phase of con struction. which is expected to begin in late fall, will be a student center and a class room wing. It will complement the science, technology, engi neering and math program at Sims. He said the “over arching goal” is to focus on the arts in the building. Perno also reported that the cafeteria “makeover” at Holsenbeck Elementary School is under way. It has been painted and furniture is expected over spring break. Joshua Wright. a fifth-grader at the school, won $30,000 in a cooking contest for the makeover. Perno also provided a list of nine “enhancement and renovation projects” in the schools. Four of those are at the Innovation Amphitheater. He said the school district installed lights at either end of the upper building for better security. The other three projects - shelving, anchor eyebolts and a stor age container at the lower drive area - will be done by Golden Productions, which manages events at the facil ity. Projects at Winder Bar- row High School, Statham Elementary and Westside Middle School also are on the list. residents. No one had qualified as of early Tuesday afternoon. If only one person qualifies, they will automatically win the seat. If no one qualifies, the town will have to make anoth er call for a special election, clerk Deana Davis said. City unveils Jackson Street plans PUBLIC SPACE, ADDITIONAL PARKING PLANNED DOWNTOWN Pictured above is a preliminary conceptual rendering of public space and additional parking planned in downtown Winder by the city. The section of North Jackson Street between East Midland Avenue and East Candler Street would be permanently closed. Four existing build ings along North Broad Street, East Midland Avenue and North Jackson Street would be torn down and an additional 48 public parking spaces would be built. The demolitions were approved by the Historic Preservation Commission and now await City Council approval. Courtesy of City of Winder Winder eyes additional parking, public space downtown; council to vote on demo of buildings By Scott Thompson News-Journal Editor See Downtown on Page 2A VIEW FROM THE OTHER SIDE Pictured above is a rendering of the proposed changes from the East Candler Street side. See BOE on Page 2A Carl mayor resigns; qualifying for special election under way

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Barrow news-journal. (Winder, Georgia) 2016-current, March 28, 2018, Image 1