Board holds off on chairman

A planned discussion on the issue of an at-large elected school board chairman was removed from the agenda of a Columbia County School Board meeting Tuesday.

"The bill hasn't come out yet, so there was nothing for us to really discuss," schools Superintendent Tommy Price said.

First proposed in January by state Sen. Jim Whitehead, R-Evans, the bill is tied up in the state Office of Legislative Council as Legislature attorneys are rewriting the draft to allow for staggered voting of trustees, according to Whitehead's office.

Whitehead has said he hopes to have a vote for the school board chairman in November 2006. The way the bill originally was written, all of the school board members would have had to seek re-election at that time.

In addition to creating an at-large elected school board chairman, the senator's legislation would decrease the school board districts from five to four, and redraw the lines to match the Columbia County Commission.

Currently, school board members select the chairman at the beginning of each year. If the bill passes, the chairman would be selected in a general election vote for a four-year term.

Also at the meeting:

School board members gave tentative approval to minor changes in the sex education curriculum.

In a letter to board members, a Sex Education Parent Committee recommended that the board include elementary and high school videos to aid teachers in sex education.

The committee also recommended an update to a teaching chart that includes "methods of preventing pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases and whether or not they are effective," according to the letter.

School board member Wayne Bridges requested that the board grant only tentative approval of the recommendations until the chart updates can be more thoroughly reviewed.

The board could grant final approval of the curriculum changes at their next meeting March 8 at the Evans Government Complex Auditorium.

Martinez Elementary School Assistant Principal Tami Flowers was promoted to principal of Westmont Elementary at the Tuesday meeting.

Flowers has served as an assistant principal at Martinez Elementary for the past three years and will replace Sandra Black, who left Westmont Elementary to become the principal of the new elementary school under construction on Mullikin Road.

Flowers also is the co-leader of a committee that recommended to the board a controversial early-release program for elementary school pupils in November.

Bridges joked with Flowers, who was in attendance at the meeting, refusing to let her leave without speaking.

"We're not going to give you early release," he said.