Phil Wood, who is currently the assistant principal at Rome Middle School, will assume the principal position at Southeast Elementary School, and Lora Young, a current educator at East Central School, will become principal at Main Elementary School.
In other action, the board approved the Anna K. Davie partnership, which will integrate services of Rome City Schools, Berry College, Georgia Northwestern Technical College and the South Rome Redevelopment Corporation.
The partnership will create a learning program for 3-year-olds to develop literacy skills in order to better prepare them for kindergarten. It will also provide an adult learning program so that adults can pursue their General Education Diplomas with teaching staff provided by GNTC.
Superintendent Gayland Cooper was enthusiastic about the partnership.
“We’re very excited because in August of 2013 when we hope to open the new Anna K. Davies school, we will for the first time ever offer a learning program for 3-year-olds in Rome City Schools,” he said.
What sparked the need for the program was the knowledge that all children learn at different paces and are raised in different environments.
“What we find is in all of our elementary schools is the learning experiences of youngsters varies fairly widely,” Cooper said. “So what we hope to capture in the 3-year-old program, we’ll start literacy early with all our children. If it works, I’d like to template this model and use it at other elementary schools.”
Rome City Schools will provide facilities but the children will be taught by Berry College personnel with a curriculum based on that of the Berry College Child Development Center’s.
“Having Berry as a partner is wonderful, it’s off-the-charts good,” said Cooper. “We’ll provide the in-kind services, but Berry will actually provide the staffing for us and the young interns.”
In other action, the board approved the second readings of the Rome Board of Education’s Proposed Goals for 2012-2013, as well as the Board Policy IFBGE (internet safety), which will seek to educate students, faculty and staff on inappropriate Internet behavior, such as cyber bullying.
In final action, the board entered a budget work session to discuss the budget for Fiscal Year 2013. The total proposed budget for FY13 is $30,621,522, a $702,281 (2.2 percent) decrease from the FY12 budget of $31,323,803.
The board will have a second reading of the proposed budget in a called meeting on June 28 at 7:30 a.m. at the central office on Second Street.
The county as 20 principals and they make a combined total of $1,966,241.95. There are tow that make over $111,000.00 per year. This comes out to an average of $98,312.09 per principal. That is an average of $1,890.61 per week. Even if you say they work 10 hours of each day for a 50 hour work week that comes out to $37.81 per hour. With the benefits they receive i think that is a pretty decent wage.
IF they would do away with just one admin per school they could afford at least two more teachers per school. Those are the people who deserve higher pay. Go look at the what some of the lower paid teachers make. Also the para-pro's who sometimes work with the most difficult students. Some of them only make 20 percent of what the principals make. Also while i am on my rant, check and see how many schools have a school nurse. We can afford 3 admins but not a nurse?
http://www.open.georgia.gov/index.html
While i believe that its important to pay our teachers well, i think the pay some of the principals and asst principals make is too much. Why do we need 3 people making over $300,000 total in some of our schools. Also why are we paying people with PHD's to teach in our middle schools?