With the 2023 school year officially underway, the Gainesville City Board of Education gathered Tuesday evening for its first meeting of the year to discuss upcoming facility improvements, the school calendar and the budget for 2023/2024.
One of the biggest priorities for the school board is upgrading and renovating Gainesville’s City Park. According to current plans, the new stadium will have a 6,000-seat capacity, a new press box and a concessions stand. It will also have safer ADA accommodations for disabled fans.
Board Treasurer Sammy Smith said the historic stadium was originally constructed in the 1930s by the Works Projects Administration under former President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
“We have, over the years, tried to make some improvements,” Smith said. “And we have – both for seating and parking, restrooms, field house and field. So this is a pretty big step for us. And that's why you've likely heard there would be two phases over two construction timelines.”
The school board will split construction phases to ensure that the field will be available for graduation, soccer and lacrosse, as well as the 2024 football season. You can read more about the City Park Stadium renovation here.
Board members presented the 2023 budget timeline, and the budget and millage will be finalized in June. Individual school budget meetings will start during the week of Feb. 6, with more department, school and Board of Education budget meetings that will follow in March.
However, Gainesville City Schools Superintendent Jeremy Williams said one new item from the state legislature has the potential to put a wrench in budget plans.
“It was great to hear about additional raises for teachers, but we did have a concerning item that came out of that last week,” Williams said. “That was when the Department of Community Health released what the employer responsibility is for health insurance. We currently pay $945 per month, per employee to have insurance and then they of course choose the premiums. So that's $11,340 a month. It is going up immediately to $15-something a month. So it's an $8,000 per employee, per year increase for us to provide health insurance to our employees. So that's going to have some major ramifications on our budget.”
According to Williams, there is an expectation that the state will cover the insurance increase for the rest of the fiscal year for teachers or other employee positions that are earned at the state level. Williams and Gainesville City Schools principals are particularly concerned about how this change will affect the consolidated fund's budget which pays for paraprofessional teachers.
“But for any position not earned at the state level, locally, we would have to budget that and consider the cost of employing individuals,” Williams said. “So it's going to be a big adjustment for us down the road in what that long-term effect is going to be. But the good news is we're not in this [alone]. Every school system across the state of Georgia is having to deal with that $635 increase from what it is now.”
Williams said the legislature usually informs schools at least 18 months ahead of time regarding such important changes, but schools did not have that luxury this year.
“There's always an adjustment every two to three years, but usually it's never been this amount,” Williams said. “It took years for it to get up to the amount it is now and it's held true for quite some time –which once again we're appreciative of – but that's a big jump for one year.”
On the positive side, board members were excited to announce that six bond debts have been successfully paid.
Gainesville City Schools Chief Financial Officer Kathy Pethel presented the $19 million bond payoff to board members.
“I'm pleased to announce that as of Dec. 1, Gainesville City School District has paid off your 2016 bond,” Pethel said. “This bond was created for the building of Enota [Multiple Intelligences Academy] and Mundy Mill [Academy].”
Now, the school board only has one more debt to focus on.
“It is the current SPLOST and bond referendum that we have that is doing Gainesville High School and GMS West,” Williams said. “So we've reduced it from six debts down to the one.”
Board members moved on to discuss choice enrollment dates for elementary and middle schools, which started on Jan. 17 and will last until Jan. 27. After that, choice enrollment will be based on enrollment projections for each school.
“You see the dates there,” Williams said. “There were no changes from last year, we just shifted based on the appropriate date. The biggest thing we worked on last year that worked really well was trying not to have overlap between two weeks of each of these opportunities. So you can see as choice enrollment ends for elementary and middle, pre-K begins in just kind of that rotation between some of those between the enrollments, but also, some of our scheduling and transition activities for our students.”
Williams also presented the 2023-2024 school calendar and explained the reason behind a slight change to the planned open house days. He used Mundy Mill Academy as an example.
During the height of COVID, Mundy Mill Academy held a five-day open house, so parents could meet individually with teachers.
“We reduced that down to three,” Williams said. “The last couple of years we've been down to two and two has worked well. But one of the things that we heard from the schools was that it's really hard to have open house one day and the next day you start school. And so the recommendation came from Mundy Mill to move our open house dates to that Thursday and Friday. So you've got all the weekend if you need to purchase supplies, if you need to work on some scheduling at the middle school in high school with new students enrolled to take care of those needs, to work with the transportation department to make sure the routes are ready to go.”
Williams also amended the distribution of school breaks and teacher workdays following feedback from employees. They had the option of a week break in October and February or splitting the two weeks across several days.
“70% of the employees said, ‘Hey, let's split those,’’ Williams explained. “The drawback was when we started to look at it and share this with the principals last week was… That means our employees are going to have to come back after Memorial Day. So do you sacrifice the two days in February in order to get done by the 24th of May for all employees? And the feedback was, ‘it's hard to get kids out on that Friday, Memorial Day weekend.’ A lot of people want to get out of town and go away for longer than just a three-day weekend, and then have to come back for a couple of days. And so what we did is we shifted those two holidays in the workday to just the workday in February, so that the kids could be finished on May 22. And then all staff will be finished by the 24th prior to Memorial Day.”
The school district also notified parents of the summer school dates, which will be from June 3 through June 20.
