Coffee County Board of Education members met on Saturday, Oct. 10 in a special retreat-style meeting. Plans for the upcoming regularly scheduled meeting were made, and many items that were discussed at a previous meeting were revisited by the members.
One such item was the dress code for Coffee County Schools. There had been discussion about possibly enforcing a uniform policy for the Coffee County School System, but this idea was met with backlash from several districts. Adam Lott, who represents District 4, stated he received many personal calls from people vehemently opposed to implementing school uniforms.
Several other board members had similar stories of parents complaining about the discussion of school uniforms.
However, Ronnie Johnson, who represents District 1, stated that many people in his district spoke highly of a uniform policy. People who have spoken with him about the possibility of a uniform policy have claimed it would take the burden off of them to deal with more important aspects of education.
Superintendent and Chairman Dr. Morris Leis spoke with school administrators in Effingham County, where schools have enforced a uniform dress code, and stated their academics were strong and the schools were doing well with a uniform policy. He also stated that as he walked through the schools in the Coffee County School System, he had never seen any instances of a student wearing distracting clothes and that dress code has never been a real issue with any administrators in the school system.
There was no action on the matter at the retreat meeting, however, and board members agreed they would vote to the best interest of the inhabitants of their respective districts if the item were to ever come up for a vote.
Superintendent Leis and Vice Superintendent Dr. James Banks, Jr. have spent the past few weeks evaluating maintenance companies to replace Service Solutions, whose service was terminated pending a 60 day notice period. Service Solutions will be leaving the Coffee County School System at the end of October, and the last pay period for workers with Service Solutions will be November 7.
There have been many complaints from many school administrators and workers with Service Solutions about management and pay issues, among other things. After a number of years facing these issues with Service Solutions, the Coffee County School System will be entering into a contract with a new maintenance company—American Facility Services.
AFS services a number of school districts in the Southeast including Atlanta public schools, Kennesaw State University, and schools in Florida as well. Ironically, the Calhoun City School System has recently entered into contract with AFS after dropping Service Solutions as well.
Under the new contract, each employee currently working in the Coffee County School System under Service Solutions will keep their positions and be integrated into AFS. There are additions to the contract that the board members are awaiting to negotiate before fully adopting the contract, and they want to further review the contract as it is now but the set date for AFS to integrate into Coffee County School System is November 1.
A proposal for a possible turf management program for students was discussed. The idea has been discussed in past meetings, but Dr. Leis said he would be contacting others in the administration to discuss the idea further. It is possible that students who were interested in participating could have credit hours for the program go towards a turf management degree for college. It would also help alleviate the grounds crews at the schools who require assistance maintaining the grounds at the schools.
This and other issues are scheduled to be further discussed at later meetings. The next regular scheduled Board of Education Meeting is October 22 at 7 p.m.