About Dawson County news. (Dawsonville, Georgia) 2015-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 17, 2024)
6A I DAWSON COUNTY NEWS I dawsonnews.com Wednesday, January 17,2024 Highlights from newly approved school calendar By Erica Jones ejones@dawsonnews.com During the Jan. 9 meeting of the Dawson County Board of Education, board members voted to approve the official calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years. In a presentation to board members during their January meeting, Superintendent Nicole LeCave explained that the dis trict has been busy surveying teachers, staff, parents and other stakeholders on what they would like to see in the next years’ school calendars. “I do feel like this calendar represents the things that we saw in the feedback from our stakeholder groups,” LeCave said. “A lot of this work has been done on this calendar throughout the year.” Some of the biggest pieces of feedback from these surveys, she said, included keeping a Friday start date for each new school year and keeping a full week of Thanksgiving break. Staff were also allowed to vote on whether to have a full week of fall break or whether to have two smaller breaks, one in February and one in October, and the majority preferred to have the two smaller breaks. The administration was also asked about lengthening the holiday break in December, and they were able to work in two additional days for the students, she added. The approved calendars each begin on the first Friday of August and end in mid-May, include a full week of spring break and consist of a total of 180 student days and 190 staff days. Board members voted unani mously, with Board Member Elaine Wilson absent, to approve the calendars for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years. While in the past the board has approved three years at a time, board members decided to approve two calen dars with this vote, meaning that the new goal will be to always have two approved cal endars to allow for staff and students to plan ahead. “We decided not to do a three-year approval per your recommendation last week at the work session, so what that means then is we’ll approve 24-25 and 25-26 and then next year we’ll work on 26-27, so there will not be a year that we do not have two calendar years approved,” LeCave said. To view both of the approved school calendars, go to https:// www.dawsoncountyschools. org/events/2024-2025_school_ calendar. Northside Dawson Primary Care offers weight loss program Photo courtesy of Saba Haeringer Dr. Saba Haeringer works out at Dawson CrossFit. Haeringer is spearheading a new physician-led weight loss program at Northside Dawson Primary Care. By Erica Jones ejones@dawsonnews.com Northside Dawson Primary Care has recently started a new physician-led weight loss program, focusing on helping patients lose weight and maintain healthy lifestyles. According to Dr. Saba Haeringer, who is spear heading the new program, it has been in the works for a long time and is aimed at providing per sonalized treatment to each of the patients in it. “It’s treatment of obesi ty and treatment to help people lose weight with the use of lifestyle, diet and exercise,” Haeringer said. “And then if we need to we can do psy chological work and pharmacotherapy." ’ Starting a program like this has been a goal that Haeringer has been work ing toward, and recently she earned a second board certification and is now a diplomat of the American Board of Obesity Medicine. “It’s important because obesity is so prevalent now in our society, which is why the American Board of Medicine decid ed to make this specialty,” Haeringer said. “As a doctor you don’t really need your official certifi cation to help your patients lose weight, but the clinical knowledge that this has given me and the understanding for obesity and the complexi ty of obesity with the cer tification takes it to the next level.” Patients that enroll in the program are invited to come in and meet with a doctor so that they can explain what’s going on, what they’ve tried in the past and what their goals are. The doctor then cre ates a personalized plan, specific to each patient, of how to help them achieve their goals. “There are some patients who just want to learn about what their options are, and there’s some patients who have tried a lot of things and they’re kind of at the end of their rope and they need help which is what we’re here for,” Haeringer said. A big part of the new program, she said, is changing the way that people think about obesi ty and weight gain and doing everything she can to remove the stigma that has traditionally been associated with being overweight. “We used to think of weight gain and obesity as ‘just eat less and move more and you’ll lose weight’ and science now shows that’s not the case — it really is person- dependent,” Haeringer said. “Weight bias and the old way of thinking about weight loss is a big obsta cle now, and reteaching people that ‘it’s not your fault’ and ‘we’re here to help you’ is really impor tant.” And she also wants her patients to know that they’re in a safe place where they can aim to reach their goals without the added judgment of the doctors helping them. “There’s no judgment, there’s no blame game — I’ve gone through my own struggles with weight gain because of pregnancy and everyone goes through different things in life so we cater to that and tailor to that,” Haeringer said. Even more than that, she added, her goal is to help the community become healthier and to help her patients not just lose weight, but to make lifestyle changes to keep them healthy in the future. “Weight loss is great, but overall wellness and fitness is a huge passion of mine,” Haeringer said. “Getting this area healthier is impor tant to me. And what I preach I do; I don’t ask my patients to do anything I wouldn’t do myself — I go to Dawson CrossFit every morning and I actually encourage a lot of my patients to go there because it’s a local community; hav ing that motivation and community around you is phenomenal.” Since the program has officially kicked off, she said, they’ve had a lot of interest, and some of their patients have even started making strides toward their goals. “I’ve started to see some patients with their results already, and to see patients get more active, lower their AlCs, get off medications and just how excited they are — it’s been awesome,” Haeringer said. For more information about the new physician- led weight loss program, call Northside Dawson Primary Care at 706-265- 1335. Record Georgia budget surplus drives ambitious spending plans By Dave Williams Capitol Beat News Service A sure sign that Georgia’s coffers are flush with an unprecedented budget sur plus is that for the first time in memory, the state plans to fund its annual list of building projects with cash instead of bonds. The budget proposals Gov. Brian Kemp released during the first week of the 2024 legislative session call for spending more than $2 billion of the surplus on what the governor’s office described as “historic” investment in education, public safety, tax relief for Georgians, and infrastructure improvements across the Peach State. “A strong economy and conservative fiscal management of state revenues ... has led to record job growth, historic investment in communities from Bainbridge to Blue Ridge, $5 billion in tax relief, and enough funds saved to operate state government for months in an emer gency, not days,” Kemp declared Thursday in his annual State of the State address to a joint session of the Georgia House and Senate. Kemp’s $37.5 billion mid-year budget includes $1.9 billion for capital projects, all funded with cash. It’s a significantly larger pot of money than the $800 million to $1 billion the state’s annual bond pack age usually contains. That capital investment doesn’t include other new spending in the governor’s bud get recommendations designed to take advantage of the bulging surplus. The list of new spending in the mid year budget includes: • $1.5 billion for transportation improvements, including $659 million for construction projects in the state Department of Transportation’s existing pipeline and $641 million aimed at improving the movement of freight. • $500 million to reduce the Georgia Employees’ Retirement System’s debt. • $450.9 million to build a new state prison. • $400 million for technology improve ments designed to increase the efficiency of the state’s workforce. • $250 million for the Georgia Environmental Finance Authority to spend on local water and sewer projects. • $178 million to design and construct a new dental school at Georgia Southern University’s Armstrong campus in Savannah. • $50 million for a new medical school at the University of Georgia. DCN file photo All of those spending items involve one time appropriations, based on the state’s policy of not using surplus revenues to create long-term obligations, according to the Governor’s Office of Planning and Budget. Another series of ongoing investments, most contained in Kemp’s $36.1 billion fiscal 2025 budget, includes $700 million in pay raises for state and university sys tem employees and public school teach ers. State and university system workers would get 4% cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), while teachers would receive $2,500 COLAs and one-time bonuses of $1,000. Another $205 million would go to local school districts for new school buses, $104 million would be set aside for grants to local schools for safety projects, and $66 million would restore a budget cut the General Assembly imposed on the univer sity system last year. The budget also would fully fund the state’s Quality Basic Education k-12 stu dent funding formula. Legislative Democrats say that new spending still is not enough to make up what for they see as chronic underfunding of education, health care, and housing. Following Kemp’s State of the State address, Senate Minority Leader Gloria Butler, D-Stone Mountain, criticized the governor’s decision to use the surplus pri marily for short-term investments. More permanent spending commitments are needed to erase a “disparity of opportuni ty” confronting Georgians, she said. “Let’s use the surplus to try to make the American dream that is out of reach for so many a reality,” Butler said. The Republican governor presented his budget recommendations Tuesday, kick ing off three days of joint hearings before the House and Senate Appropriations committees. Kemp will be speaking remotely from Davos, Switzerland, where he will travel for the second year in a row to the annual World Economic Forum. VOTE NOW! 1.1.2024-1.31.2024 VISIT DAWS0NNEWS.COM/BEST0F TO VOTE TODAY! ^DawsonCountyNews DawsonNews com
