Board of Education to adopt school calendar at tonight’s meeting

The Stephens County Board of Education will meet for the scheduled January meeting tonight, Jan. 16. The meeting will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the Stephens County School District office, 191 Big A School Road in Toccoa.  

On the agenda for tonight’s meeting is approval of the school calendar for the 2024-25 school year. The proposed calendar was made available to WNEG Radio following the Board of Education work session last week. The proposed calendar includes the required 180 student days, with the first day of school being scheduled on Friday, August 2nd. Fall break would be October 8-11; the Thanksgiving Holiday would be the week of Nov. 25-29; the winter holiday would be Monday, Dec. 23 through Friday Jan. 3, with early release on Friday, Dec. 20 and the first day of the second semester scheduled for Monday, Jan. 6. On the proposed schedule, Spring Break would run from Monday, March 31 to Friday, April 4, and the last day of school would be on Wednesday, May 21, with graduation scheduled for Friday, May 23. This schedule is substantially unchanged from the current year school calendar. 

Also on the agenda for tonight’s meeting is the selection of the board chair and vice chair for 2024. 

Also at tonight’s meeting, School Superintendent Dr. Connie Franklin will be asking board members to approve including a retention bonus of $1,000 for all full-time employees and a $500 for all part-time employees of Stephens County Schools to be paid in the January payroll. The funding for the retention bonus comes from the state. 

In December, Governor Brian Kemp announced that he would use $330 million of a multi-billion surplus to provide a one-time $1,000 bonus, what he termed a “retention pay supplement” for state employees, including teachers.

Also, in Kemp’s proposed budget for the 2024-25 fiscal year, which begins in July, which he released last week as the Georgia General Assembly begin its 2024 session, he also proposes a $2,500 raise for public school teachers. According to state statistics, the raise would bring average pay a typical teacher in Georgia to more than $65,000 per year. During Kemp’s first five years in office, annual salaries for teachers have been boosted by $7,000. 

Additional pay raises in the proposed budget include a 4% pay increase for state employees, including university employees. State statistics put state employee salaries at an average of $50,400.