Fannin County’s Board of Education held a regular scheduled meeting last week. Several items were discussed at the meeting, the most notable being the approval of new homeless procedures, the purchase of a new vehicle for drivers ed, and a new media center for the Career Technical and Agricultural Education program. Tara Cantrell, Fannin’s homeless liaison presented the county’s plan and procedures for providing assistance to students living in a homeless or unaccompanied situation. Last year Fannin’s school system had 2968 students, of which 414 were considered homeless or unaccompanied.

“When I go to these conferences I hear people from other schools saying ‘I’m having this problem [with the school system] doing this, that, or the other,’ and I never have anything to say, because our schools just bend over backwards to make sure these kids are coming in, getting started, and if there’s a need, if they need uniforms, tennis shoes, or backpacks, or whatever, we’re all scrambling to see what we can get together. We make it happen..”

The board also approved the purchase of a new vehicle for the high school drivers education course. Only one qualifying bid was received – a Malibu from June Walker Chevrolet. The vehicle will need to be further equipped for the job and will cost the county $20,000. SPLOST funds will be used for the purchase.

The board also voted to approve the purchase of new security hardware for the middle school. The project will cost $17,403 and will also utilize funds from SPLOST.

Also approved was the change order for the CTAE/Media Center Project. The project has been in the works now since the modernization started, but has been put off until now. The plan is to renovate the old home economics classroom to make room for a guidance office, a multipurpose area with computers, a conference room, and a storage area for records. The total cost of the project will be just under $73,000 – taken from SPLOST.

The meeting in it’s entirety is posted below.

FANNIN BOE September 11 2014 from Fetch on Vimeo.