Hall County Looks Into Cutting SROs, Nurses, Parapros and Even Teachers

It’s no surprise to anyone that government is going to have to cut spending dramatically to offset the revenue shortfalls.  The state of Georgia has thought abuot cutting funding for school nurses, and now Hall County is looking into cutting nurses, SROs and teachers among other things.  Many parents credit school nurses with saving their child’s life.  Here’s what Jennie Clayton-Nedza has to say;

“If there hadn’t been a nurse there when my son, Joe (a diabetic who was in middle school at the time), had an extremely low blood sugar (40) . He was walking down a hall that was meant for another grade level and a teacher realized he was on the wrong hall. He couldn’t talk. He could barely walk. She knew he needed the nurse. He made it to the nurses office and she immediately pushed him to drink juice. He couldn’t hold the box to drink. She had to squeeze it into his mouth just a little at a time. I believe that any moment he was going to go into a seizure. Without her knowledge of the problems related to low blood sugars she may have waited too long. She may have taken his silence as being rude. I hate to think about what might have happened if a nurse hadn’t been there.”

This is from Cindy Kenimer Mize;

“My 2nd year at CMS, “Little Johnny” came in to see me. He said he wasn’t feeling well. He had a temp of 100.8. All he complained of was fatigue and muscle aches in his legs. After the usual questions to rule out “my assumptions”, he told me about the “red bump” on his L~thigh. He said he thought he had been bitten. He had not told mom, he didn’t think it was nothing to worry about. I ask to see it, OMG!!!!! He had red streaks running up & down his leg. The area was hot to touch and red. I called mom and told her he must go the the ER immediately. Within 1 hour he had been admitted and was recieving the immediate care he needed. The doctor told his mother, he had sepsis and could have died very soon. He spent 4 days in the hospital. When he returned to school he came to see me and I got the biggest hug and then he said, “Thank you Nurse Mize, you saved my life”. I just gave praise to GOD that I was there!
What will happen when we’re not?”

Wow, it’s got to be really hard to cut out a school nurse after hearing of such incredible stories.  Hall County is also thinking of ending their 70% sponsorship of School Resource Officers (SRO).  Currently there are officers at every Hall County Middle and High school.  Under the proposal, the County would only cut those officers in the middle schools.  Today The Gainesville Times ran an article concerning middle school SROs.  Corporal Vic Gazaway is an SRO at South Hall Middle School, he was featured in the article, which you can find here.  Corporal Gazaway made a few statements which really struck me.  He had mentioned that middle school years are very important in a child’s life and that his, and other SROs presence in their lives at school really helps them to develop a trust.  Gazaway also said that without that trust, it would be much harder for the high school SROs to connect with the students.  I couldn’t agree more.  Gang activity has really slowed down since these SROs have been placed, and that’s great.  But the problem is whether or not the money will be there as Hall County is trying to cut salaries all across the board.  Hall Countty Schools Superinendent Will Schofield had the following to say;

“We’ve got everything from nurses to school resource officers to graduation coaches to instructional coaches, and most fundamentally … classroom teachers,” Schofield said”

The Gainesville Times

As everyone will be affected in one way or another, my prayers go out to the School Board members.  They are being faced with very tough decisions right now and either way they will come under harsh criticism.  I wish we didn’t have to go through all of this, but we must.

Do Any Democrats Pay Taxes?

Just a thought of mine. When will Congress decide enough is enough? I’m pretty sure we don’t want delinquent taxpayers running the IRS, if the man can’t handle his own finances and taxes then how can he manage every other American’s? One word for this=ridiculous. Republicans really need to stand up and say Americans deserve better.

Comm. Ashley Bell Wants Minority Appointed

Hall County Commissioner Ashley Bell (D-Gainesville) recently told The Times that he thought a minority should be appointed to the Tax Assessor’s board citing that the job has been held traditionally by white males. Are you kidding me??? Mr. Bell, I have one question for you, how can a person’s gender or sex better qualify them for a job?  It seems that people these days are too close minded to take into account the qualities that others possess and instead think that making history or changing it up a bit is a better alternative.  Duane Ware recently wrote in to The Times;

Choose tax assessor on ability not race
Regarding Tuesday’s story that a Hall County commissioner wants a minority appointed to the board of tax assessors. I find it somewhat troubling that he is making public statements about disqualifying potential appointees to the current tax board vacancy based on their race, sex, etc.

Isn’t that what you are doing when you say you want to appoint a minority? White males need not apply. Hey commish, how about you search for the brightest, most qualified individual for the position? If that turns out to be a minority, then great; if not, then that’s OK, too, right?

Maybe I don’t understand the position of tax assessor, but how does a minority bring a fresh perspective to tax assessment? This is a government job. The government is supposed to act in the people’s best interest, not the commissioners’.

It is in the best interest of the residents of Hall County to have the brightest, most qualified people serving them in their local government.

Duane Ware
Flowery Branch

Well said Mr. Ware, well said.  You can read Commissioner Bell’s viewpoint here.

ProLife Add Starring Barack Obama

South Hall School Shuffle

The Hall County School Board is studying moving South Hall Middle School students to C.W. Davis Middle School, moving the current Davis students to Flowery Branch High School and those at Floweery Branch to the newly built Spout Springs High School.  Just how far out of the would this be for some South Hall Students?  Well, since South Hall district stretches into some parts of Athens Hwy.  A lot of those students would even say that South Hall Middle is already out of the way, now the School System wants to move them down to Flowery Branch???  If the system wants to really save money, then we need to go into the classrooms and find out how much of the stuff we pay for are going unused.  You’d be surprised how much nice, innovative and neat learning tools are going unused in our classrooms.  But if you were to cut that funding for a year or two some would think that they’ve been shot!

SPLOST

The Georgia General Assembly would like to tack on another 1 cent sales tax, this time statewide and solely for transportation.   My opinion is we in Hall County may not even see the fruits of our labor on this one.  Most of the money is probably going to rural South Georgia and Atlanta.  Which is OK if were not paying for it.  So I don’t think I can support this one. 

On the other hand, I can (reluctantly) support the Hall County SPLOST.  It’s been going on since the 80’s and has provided much of the County government’s responsibilities but it has done a lot of good.  And now more than ever is the best time to have that extra money to go ahead and move Hall County forward and get ready for the next surge of the housing industry, which always leads to traffic congestion and school over crowding.  We’ve had to endure these growing pains way too much here lately becuase they went long unattended too.  Now is the perfect time to go ahead with infrastructure developments and inprovements.  By the way this would all be funded by the upcoming SPLOST referendum, not sewer users.  This would also allow for some help in Hall County’s unemployment area.  With construction going on in Hall County and for Hall County it’s only necessary that Hall County citizens be put to work.  Craig Lutz is mistaken on how I think this will help us out.  He has said that the SPLOST would be the equivalent to the New Deal back in the Great Depression.  he also stated that the infrastructure would be funded by sewer services.  Now how he gets that roads and school are built by sewer revenue, I’m not quite sure but whatever floats his boat.  When you have a 1 cent sales tax specifically for infrastructure, then that 1 cent sales tax usually funds that infrastructure.  Also I’ll be working on getting some specifics of the last few SPLOSTs and breaking them down to see just how much they’ve helped us all out.