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Friday, Nov. 20, 2009

Bibb school board approves changes to graduation ceremony requirement

The Bibb County school board met Thursday to approve graduation requirement changes, a budget amendment and testing date changes on some upcoming state exams.

During the school board’s November meeting, which was held at Southwest High School, members officially voted to require seniors to pass the Georgia High School Graduation Tests in order to walk in May commencement exercises.

The change, aimed at boosting graduation rates, would be required in 2013, starting with this year’s freshmen.

The board also approved the following items:

— End-of-Course Tests for high school students in Math I will be given no later than Dec. 9, at the state’s request.

Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests will be given to elementary and middle school students a week earlier this spring, now starting April 12. The change will more quickly identify students who need to be remediated and take a CRCT retest.

— Starting in 2013, Bibb high school students who don’t pass their core subject classes won’t be promoted to the next grade level.

— Vineville Academy will submit a waiver to the state since it has one student over the class size maximum. A third-grade classroom has 24 students.

— A special penny sales tax Nov. 4 had election results of 4,400 yes votes and 2,640 no votes. The state requires the system to approve the election results.

— Changes to the school system’s 2010 general fund. After adding $10,000 in money generated from potential teachers who pay to have their fingerprinting done for background checks and more than $100,000 in state funding and grants, it leaves $8.8 million in budget reserves.

The amount is a $65,000 increase from another recent budget amendment but a $3.6 million decrease from the system’s original $189 million budget adopted this past June that left $12.4 million in reserves.

To contact writer Julie Hubbard, call 744-4331.