About The Banks County news. (Homer, Banks County, Ga.) 1968-current | View Entire Issue (June 25, 2025)
PAGE 6A BANKS COUNTY NEWS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 25, 2025 School News Open house coming up at Banks schools Open house has been set for the next school year for Banks County schools. The schedule is: • Banks County Primary School: July 30 10 a.m.-12 p.m. and 4 p.m.-6 p.m. • Banks County Elementary School: July 30 10 a..m- 12 p.m. and 4 p.m.-6 p.m. • Banks County Middle School: July 29 4 p.m.-6 p.m. • Banks County High School: July 31 4 p.m.-6 p.m. College News Kieffer Hellmeister receives degree from Mercer Mercer University con ferred bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to more than 2,600 students at four commencements held in Macon and Atlanta. Among those recog nized was Kieffer James Hellmeister of Lula who received a School of Med icine, Doctor of Medicine degree. Founded in 1833, Mer cer University is a dynamic and comprehensive center of undergraduate, graduate and professional educa tion. The University enrolls more than 9,200 students in 12 schools and colleges — liberal arts and sciences, law, pharmacy, medicine, business, engineering, ed ucation, theology, music, nursing, health professions, and professional advance ¬ ment. Major campuses for Mer cer are located in Macon and Atlanta, medical school sites in Macon, Savannah and Columbus, and at re gional academic centers in Henry and Douglas coun ties. Students named to Dean’s List at Kennesaw recognized Kennesaw State Universi ty has named to the Dean’s List students who were rec ognized for their academ ic achievement during the Spring 2025 semester. Undergraduate students enrolled in at least nine credit hours and with a term grade point average of at least 3.5 were named to the list. Students from your area earning Dean’s List honors are: •Zackery Dickey of Ho mer, majoring in Unde clared — Business and Management Focus Area •Emma Frechette of Bald win, majoring in Elementa ry Education •Amayah Dooley of Bald win, majoring in Biology Summer meals offered to local State to pay for thousands to get a private K-12 education this year for Georgia students youth; drop-off schedule given Summer meals will be offered this summer to children 18 and under at no cost. The food will be given out on Thursdays, June 5, June 12 and June 19. The schedule is:: • 10:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., Banks County Veterans Me morial Park, 51 Yonah-Homer Road, Homer. • 10:30 a.m. to 10:45 a.m., Gillsville Baptist Church, 2595 Ga-323, Gillsville. • 11 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., Home Depot, 230 Steven B. Tan- ger Boulevard. • 11 a.m. to 11:15 a.m., Alto Congregational Holiness Church, 801 Holch Alto Street, Alto. • 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., Dollar General, 105 Harmony Church Road, Baldwin. • 11:30 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., New Salem Methodist Church, 2170 Ga-59, Commerce. Daily pick up, Mondays through Thursdays, and week- end pick up will also be available at the Banks County Public Library, 226 Ga-51, Homer. For more information, call 706-677-4737. Back to school requirements listed by Health Department The Banks County Health Department has listed back- to-school requirements, which include the following: •some immunizations and screenings are a part of school requirements and are offered at the health department. •Kindergarteners need childhood vaccine form 3231 and hearing, vision and dental screenings. The child must be up to date before entering kindergarten. •Seventh graders must receive one dose each of the Tdap and meningococcal vaccine. •Eleventh graders must receive one booster dose of the menigococcal vaccine after their 16th birthday and before entering the 11th grade. The health department is located at 667 Thompson Street, Homer. For more information on the requirements, call 706-677- 2296. By Ty Tagami Capitol Beat News Service This fall, thousands of Georgia students will attend a private school or study at home, and state government will help them pay for it. Republican lawmakers led a push last year to give families $6,500 a year per student toward private edu cation. Georgia already had a state-funded voucher pro gram, but it was limited to students with disabilities or certain medical conditions. Another program for all stu dents was funded through tax credits rather than mon ey directly from the state treasury. The new state-funded “Promise Scholarship” program doesn’t require a disability. It only requires that students live in the at tendance zone of a public school performing in the bottom 25% statewide. The student either must have at tended it for a year or be a rising kindergartner. As of Monday, nearly 13,000 had applied for a scholarship and more than 8,300 were considered pre liminarily eligible, which translates to a cost of be tween $54 million and $84 million for the upcoming school year. The application period runs through June, so more may apply, and there will be two more windows to apply during the upcoming school year. The money can go toward tuition and fees at approved schools. It can also offset home school costs, paying for cur riculum and even medical and therapeutic services by approved providers. Trans portation costs are covered, too, at up to $500 per year. As of Monday, about 60% of the preliminarily eligi ble students had said they wanted to attend a private school, the rest choosing home school or other edu cational support services or not yet making a selection, according to the Georgia Student Finance Commis sion, which operates the program through a public non-profit organization. Nearly 400 private Geor gia schools had been ap proved or were approved but still completing the reg istration process this week, with 150 applications de nied. More than half of the approved schools were in greater metro Atlanta, with about three dozen in the city of Atlanta. Columbus, Macon and Savannah also had numerous approved schools. More than 300 service providers made the ap proved list. About a third of them were outside Georgia, with several in California, Texas, Pennsylvania, New York and Florida. Critics contended that most of the families that used the scholarships would be wealthy since they would be able to cover the cost between the state subsidy and tuition that can run to $10,000 or more. So far, about three quar ters of the preliminarily eligible students are from households earning less than 400% of the feder al poverty threshold, or $106,600 a year for a family of three and $128,600 for a family of four. Opponents of the pro gram, including most Dem ocrats in the General As sembly and public-school advocacy groups, argued that fly-by-night schools would take the money with out properly educating the students. In the end, they said, these students would return to public schools and become their burden. So the GOP lawmakers who pushed the bill added a requirement that all students in the program must take ei ther the same state exams as public school students or one of three national “norm-referenced” tests to be selected by the state. Private schools will have to report the results, along with other information, such as attendance rates and graduation rates. Program proponents ar gued that public schools could not properly serve all 1.7 million students attend ing one in Georgia. Shakia McCrary’s son, a rising second grader, will be among those leaving his neighborhood public school this fall. He has learning disabili ties that can lead to misbe havior if he is not kept on task, she said, describing how a teacher would put him on speaker phone so she could calm him down. His public school in Fort Valley, south of Macon, lacks enough specialized staff to give him the atten tion he needs, McCrary said. So she is considering two private schools within a half hour drive because, she said, they have smaller class sizes. The state-funded scholar ship will cover all but about $1,000 of the tuition cost at each school, said McCrary, who works for a federal health insurance program. She is thankful for the promise scholarships. “Private school, it crossed my mind, but I knew that I just couldn’t afford it and still be able to live comfort ably,” she said. If not for the state funding, her son would be heading back to public school this fall, she said, and she would be dealing with the same issues. Republican lawmak ers had been pushing for Town of Homer Notice of Availability of Proposed Budget for Fiscal Year 2025-26 and Public Meeting A proposed budget for the Town of Homer has been submitted and is available for public inspection at the Homer Town Hall. A public meeting regarding the budget will be held at Homer Town Hall at 8:30 a.m. on July 1, 2025, at which time any persons wishing to appear and comment on the budget proposal will be heard. A called meeting of the Homer Town Council to consider adoption of the budget for 2025-2026 will be held at 8:30 a.m. on July 1, 2025, at the Homer Town Hall following the public meeting. years to get the program approved, finally gather ing enough votes to squeak Senate Bill 233 into law last year. Sen. Larry Walker III, R-Perry, the Senate majori ty caucus secretary, sees the subsidies as an “incredibly popular” issue for his party. “This school choice pro gram is not just a life chang er for the students and fami lies that participate. It’s also a party expander,” Walker said at the Georgia GOP convention in Dalton in early June. “School choice introduces new constituents to our Republican values. It allows them to under stand that it’s conservative Republicans, not liberal Democrats, who are fight ing for better opportunities for working folks and fam ilies.” On Thursday, fellow Sen ate Republicans voted to nominate Walker as their next president pro tempore. The full Senate will vote on his promotion to top-ranked senator when the body re convenes in January. Meanwhile, one group backing SB 233 is now pro moting the scholarships, hoping as many parents as possible will access the $141 million that lawmak ers allocated to it this year. Americans for Prosperity has placed four billboards around DeKalb County ad vertising the program, and volunteers have handwrit ten about 5,000 postcards to likely parents they think should know about it, said Tony West, the organiza tion’s director in Georgia. “We worked very hard to see Senate Bill 233 pass,” West said, “and now we want to work just as hard to make sure that it is a suc cess.” School summer hours announced Bansk County High School summer office hours have been announced. They are 8a.m. to 4 p.m. from June 2-12,17-19 and July 8-10, 14-31. New student registration is online at https://bchs.banks. kl2.ga.us/. After completing the online registration, you must call or email Kelly Patterson at 706-677-2221 or kpatterson@banks.kl2.ga.us to set up an appointment to complete the registration process. Recycle this newspaper! Fun By The Numbers 3 2 7 6 4 9 4 7 4 9 7 8 6 3 6 1 9 1 9 7 5 2 8 4 3 Send your school news to angela@mainstreetnews.com.
