Overview:
Decatur City Schools Board of Education approved their legislative priorities for the 2024 session of the Georgia General Assembly
In the regularly scheduled November board meeting, the Decatur City Schools Board of Education approved their legislative priorities for the 2024 session of the Georgia General Assembly. The priorities will focus on safety, security, mental health, funding, and local authority. The DCS board submits its priorities annually, with the draft presented in the October pre-work meeting for discussion.
Safety and Security
Under safety and security, the school system will focus on dedicating a line item for safety, incorporating an annual grant, funding for monitoring physical and cyber threats and training for school administrators, and subsequent funding for installing, licensing, and maintaining physical safety and cyber security systems.
Mental Health
With the mental health focus, the school board will focus on increasing funding to train mental health professionals, expand access for students and staff access and funding counselors for students in special education and gifted programs, and decrease the student-to-school counselor ratio.
Funding
With the funding priority, the Decatur City School Board of Education is asking for the Decatur delegation to fully fund and modernize the QBE formula to account for inflation to fund public education. In addition, the board is asking for increased state funding for quality early education programs, green infrastructure, and electric buses and to properly fund HB 538 and SB 48 around literacy and dyslexia.
Local Authority
Under the local authority priority, the board wants to maintain local control over school governance, operations, curricular decisions, and flexibility in implementing legislative priorities.
Decatur City Schools has a total enrollment of approximately 5,700 students.