June 25, 2020–6:00 a.m.
STAFF REPORTS
There will be a high school graduation ceremony for students in the Floyd County School System, but the location is still up in the air.
Superintendent Dr. Jeff Wilson said Wednesday the ceremonies will be on July 23 and 24.
“We originally scheduled graduations that would have been at the Forum,” he said. “Per recommendation from the Georgia Department of Public Health, we are looking at going outside and we are looking at venues right now. We are certainly considering our high schools but there are some issues with our high school stadiums in that we don’t have power that can run all of the equipment we need. Not that we can’t do that, but generators would be loud. There are some open-air venues in the community that we are talking about.”
A survey will be sent out the first week of July to get a tally of how many graduates and family members plan to attend.
“Even with an outdoor event, depending on where we are, you may have to limit seating depending on how many attend and how many family members they bring with them,” Dr. Wilson added. “We are going to try not to do that but we will try to socially distance families as per the recommendation of the department of public health.
Dr. Wilson said the goal is to have as much of a traditional graduation as possible.
The Floyd County Board of Education also approved a recommendation from the superintendent Wednesday to purchase two new special education buses at a reduced price.
Dr. Wilson said the buses were needed to meet social distancing requirements.
“We have a number of special needs students that immune issues and if a parent chooses to send them to school, some of our special education buses may have four or five students on them,” Dr. Wilson said. We need to get those numbers down to two. So, we had the opportunity because a system had ordered some buses, and then when the governor’s 11% budget cut was announced, they were no longer able to pick those buses up. So, we were able to pick up a couple of special education buses at a discounted rate.”
The school system received a $6,500 credit, bringing the cost of the fully equipped special education buses down to $96,500 each.
In other action during Wednesday’s called meeting, the Floyd County Board of Education vote to approve the 2020-2021 tentative millage rate.
The proposed rate is 18.25 mils, the same as last year.
The millage rate will be set following public hearings, which have not been scheduled yet.