School Calendar vote to be decided tomorrow

ELLIJAY, Ga. – As has become tradition in Gilmer’s Board of Education in the first few months of the year, discussion and a voting system has been held for the board as they decide which calendar to approve for the coming school year.

Discussion on the topic has already risen in the BOE last month as the board began debating when school should start and when it should end. Though most of the creation of the annual calendar has been left to the schools submitting them, this year it was suggested among the board to include restrictions on when school can start back.

Once again utilizing a vote through email, this month, Superintendent Dr. Shanna Downs reported the results of the 772 responses to the calendar vote. The process was held via email, according to Downs, who said email address verifications helped ensure that nobody was voting multiple times. The vote was accessed through a link in the emails sent out and each link could only be used once.

Of those votes, the results between the three presented included 295 votes (38.22%) for Calendar 1, 71 votes (9.2%) for Calendar 2, and 406 votes (52.59%) for Calendar 3.

With the results in, Dr. Downs recommended that the board approve a calendar during their Regular Meeting tomorrow, Thursday, March 18, 2021.

The Board of Education does not currently have that voters winning calendar available on the website at this time, it is not officially adopted until a formal motion to approve and a vote has been made.

However, one board member has already voiced opinions against the winning calendar. Board member Ronald Watkins said in Monday’s meeting that he will be voting “no” on Calendar 3 as several members of the board, a majority at the time, discussed and agreed that these should not begin before August 1, 2021. Debate over the topic will continue tomorrow at their Regular Meeting scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. at the administrative offices.

Watkins did note that he would vote for calendar 1, the second most popular, instead.

Additionally, as the process begins anew next year, Gilmer will likely be looking at multi-year calendars instead as the board also discussed the possibility last month, but ultimately decided not to try and change in the middle of the creation process.