School Moves Among Top Education Stories

The Paulding County School System had an eventful year under Dallas-Hiram Patch’s watch. Here are five headlines that seemed to stand out among all the rest.

Students and staff in the Paulding County School System did not get a week off for a winter break in February, as school board members voted to use Feb. 21 to 25 and a March 11 holiday as class days . Another date originally set as a school holiday, March 11, also became a school day to fill in the class time missed by an inclement weather day taken Dec. 16, 2010.

Paulding School Board members voted in April to put in the district’s five-year facilities plan. A vote on is slated for January.

With a , the Paulding County School System is in the midst of in order to fill the new school and best utilize the eight existing middle schools. Parents had a chance earlier this month to , with a similar meeting set for January.

Despite some public outcry calling for affected students to be allowed to participate at graduation exercises, the Paulding School Board in May that kept those students who had not passed all parts of the Georgia High School Graduation Test from walking across the stage at graduation. The issue led to the May 10 board meeting being one of the most attended meetings of the year.

Eight Paulding County schools remained short of goals prescribed under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, according to the updated Adequate Yearly Progress report released in November by the Georgia Department of Education. Making AYP has become tougher in recent years due to the ramping up of academic goals. Schools across the state will have to continue to increase their academic results as goals move closer to a required 100-percent proficiency for all students by 2014.