Second EES Public Hearing Set for Tonight

The Stephens County Board of Education will hold the second public hearing on the proposed closing of Eastanollee Elementary School tonight.

That hearing will start at 6:30 p.m. in the Tugaloo Center for the Performing Arts on the campus of Stephens County High School.

It is the final of the two scheduled public hearings on the topic.

Last month, the Stephens County Board of Education voted to authorize school system staff to initiate a Fiscal Year 2016 budget reduction plan that would initiate the possible closing of Eastanollee Elementary, re-structure grades Pre-K through five, and develop a corresponding reduction in force plan.

Stephens County School Superintendent Bryan Dorsey said the total budget reduction plan he proposed would save the school system an estimated $1.9 million a year.

According to Dorsey, most of that savings would come from the personnel side.

“Most of that savings is because of the consolidation, you are able to reduce the number of positions required to operate a school,” said Dorsey. “There are some operational savings, but it is somewhere around the $200,000 mark, so about $1.7 (million) of that would come in personnel.”

Under the proposal, the school system would close Eastanollee Elementary and move all Pre-K and Kindergarten students to Big A Elementary, 1st and 2nd grade to Liberty Elementary, 3rd and 4th grades to Toccoa Elementary, and 5th grade would then move to Stephens County Middle School in a separate 5th Grade Academy.

As for what would happen to Eastanollee Elementary from a building perspective, Dorsey said there are multiple possibilities.

“It may become an evening course facility,” said Dorsey. “We have talked to Mountain Ed about that to see if they might be interested. Obviously, we would do some preservation modifications to ensure that the building did not degrade. Then, we have talked about people generating some other ideas for what future uses might be. We will certainly do what is right for the building to take care of the building so that it is not seen as something that is no longer of need or use.”

He went on to say that he does not feel that how the building will be used next year would greatly impact the total savings projected as part of this proposal.

“If someone moves in there, they would obviously be responsible for those associated costs and if we use it as we had intended in a worst-case scenario, we had already estimated a reduction of savings. We never estimated that it would just be completely wiped off,” said Dorsey.

According to Dorsey, these proposed budget cuts are necessary in order to help get the school system back to a position where it is not borrowing money through Tax Anticipation Notes to fund school system operations prior to the start of a fiscal year.

AM 630 WNEG and wnegradio.com will broadcast tonight’s hearing from the Tugaloo Center at Stephens County High School starting at 6:30 p.m.