Local voters approved Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (ESPLOST) IV in November, and the 1 percent sale tax is now being collected. The school board approved the ESPLOST resolution as a potential first step for collecting bonds.
“All that does is allow me to go to the board of elections to let them know that we may go to the Superior Court for a bond validation,” said school board attorney Andrew Lakin. “I have six months from the time that the election was certified in November, which would put me to the end of April to file in Superior Court if you direct me to go out for bonds in the marketplace.”
Scott Spence, superintendent of Glynn County Schools, said he does not intend to go out for bonds, but this resolution is a precautionary measure in case that step is needed.
The school board also unanimously approved using around $179,000 to buy carts for the 6,891 new Chromebooks that were purchased after a board vote in December to make technology more accessible to local students.
“The idea is that we’re to put a Chromebook cart in each homeroom in elementary and middle school and then our academic classes in high school,” Spence said during a work session Jan. 7. “We want to have a Chromebook cart in all of those classrooms so there won’t have to be any sharing. The teachers will just have them in their classrooms.”
The board also approved a $279,405 Promethean board purchase for the new Altama Elementary School, a $60,368 technology purchase for C.B. Greer Elementary and the use of L4GA grant funding to buy 15 Promethean panels for Jane Macon Middle School to support literacy education.
In other business, the school board approved using grant funding for an agreement with the Georgia Leadership Institute for School Improvement, Inc., to allow for a training opportunity this summer for district staff, school leaders and their teams at a local venue.