Subscribe to our new Fayette Front Page Daily Newsletter!
You'll receive a daily email with links to the articles
we've posted on the site and on our blogs, a sprinkling of events of note
and maybe even a joke, tip or quote!
Welcome to the
Fayette
Front Page... a better side of news for the citizens of Fayette County!
First to bring you complete daily community news you can use. Enjoy some
of the best news in the county and the state of Georgia!
We cannot live only for ourselves. A thousand
fibers connect us with our fellow-men; and along those fibers, as
sympathetic threads, our actions run as causes, and they come back to us as
effects.
- Henry Melville
The
Fayette Front Page offers a FREE page to all non-profits!
Visit the
Directory to see
more civic groups and non-profits. If you'd like to add your
non-profit organizations information to the site please
send us an email!
Six essential qualities that
are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy,
wisdom, charity. - William Menninger
From Rep. Matt Ramsey: Statement on Senate Bill
458
3/26/08 (5:43 p.m.) I am pleased to report that the House Committee on Science and
Technology has amended a provision in Senate Bill 458 that would have
potentially required school systems to accept students from non-accredited
school systems. The amended version of the provision is now permissive and says
that the receiving school system “may” accept such student, leaving it to the
sole discretion of the receiving County, as was the intent in the original
legislation. As now amended, the County may refuse a student for any reason and
it is completely in the discretion of the school system that would accept or
deny such student’s request to attend. I spoke in Committee today and thanked
the Chairman and author of the bill on behalf of Fayette County for hearing and
addressing our concerns.
I and several colleagues worked diligently over the last
several days to convince members of the Committee that this amended provision
would have seriously detrimental consequences for school systems forced to
accept an influx of students from failing school districts. The underlying
legislation proposes options for students that are in a school system that loses
accreditation. Among the options in the original language was for students to
attend school in other school systems and it provided that other school systems
“may” accept such students at their discretion. However, this language was
amended on the floor of the Senate, prior to the bill’s passage, to provide that
other school systems “shall” accept these students, subject to space
availability. I am thankful that the House Committee has agreed to change
“shall” back to “may” to make crystal clear that the receiving County could
refuse students from failing school systems in their sole discretion.
I would like to specifically thank all the parents that have
contacted me and other members of the General Assembly in opposition to this
provision. The outcry of our community made it easy for me to make the case
that this was bad public policy. I am so proud to represent a district that
cares so deeply about the education of our youth. We now must vigilantly track
the progress of this bill to ensure further efforts to amend this legislation
are defeated. As a parent of two young children about to start in our local
schools, I will always fight to protect the quality of Fayette County’s schools
for them and all the children of our community. As a product of Fayette County
public schools, I believe it is my charge to work to ensure current and future
generations of local school children have the same excellent education I was
afforded.
Seed Newsvine
