BOE Waives Class Sizes, Hires Substitutes

During a called September 22nd meeting, The Fannin County Board of Education approved a resolution to waive the maximum class size requirements. In the spring, the board passed a similar resolution. In the spring resolution, though, the requirements for the maximum class size waiver excluded Special Education and English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) classes. Last week’s resolution included the Special Education and ESOL classes. The board passed the resolution with a unanimous vote.The resolution allows for the schools in the district to exceed the maximum number of students permitted by the state for classes. According to the resolution, all but one area is permitted to exceed the given class size by one to three students. For example, where classes have size restrictions of 28, the district can now place as many as 31 students in such classes. Regarding the class size waiver, the one subject area that is allowed to exceed this one to three extension is the Gifted Classes.

According to the resolution, Gifted Classes are allowed to exceed the size restrictions by one to seven students. However, the Gifted Classes were included in the spring resolution. The additional classes unique to last week’s resolution were Special Education and ESOL. These two classes were excluded from the initial resolution last spring because the county believed the class sizes to be bound by federal restriction, but later found that this was not the case.

“This is just one of this tools the state gave us,” Superintendent Mark Henson said, “to deal with the recession and the down-turn of the economy, if need be.” Henson said that he wanted to have these policies in place in case the county needed them.

The board also approved several personnel changes. The board approved Ann Bailey, Jeremy Bradburn, Maddalena Colletti, Jerald Jones, Cindy McBrayer, and Sarah Vecchio for substitute teacher positions and Ms. Colletti was also approved for the position of substitute custodian. In addition, the board accepted the resignation of Karen Taylor from Fannin Middle School, retiring from her position as a Language Teacher.