Today’s Rome BOE meeting to be a farewell to 4 board members
The Rome Board of Education meeting tonight will be the last for four outgoing board members.
Tonight’s meeting of the Rome Board of Education will be the last for four current board members, as four new board members will join the ranks at the start of the new year.
The meeting will begin at 5:45 p.m. and will be held at the Rome City Schools central office at 508 E. Second St. The board will caucus at 5 p.m. in Superintendent Lou Byars’ office.
Outgoing board members are Richard Dixon, Cheryl Huffman, Bruce Jones and Dale Swann. All seven seats on the board were up for grabs in November’s election.
Huffman, who has been on the board for 20 years, and Jones, who has served two four-year terms, did not seek reelection in November’s election. Dixon and Swann did not secure enough votes on Nov. 7 to be among the top seven vote-getters.
Incumbents Elaina Beeman, Will Byington and Faith Collins were the only current board members who were elected for the next term. They will be joined by newcomers Dr. Melissa Davis, Jill Fisher, Alvin Jackson and John Uldrick. The outgoing board members will have a chance to share a few words about their time serving on the board at the end of the meeting.
The system has submitted bids to begin the first phase of the construction of a multipurpose facility, which will include a college and career academy, at Rome High, Byars said. Since the new building will be on the site of the current practice football field, the system
aims to construct a new field on an adjacent 4.5-acre tract, he added. The new practice field will be fullsize and bleachers will be put in.
The system received around five bids for the project, and Byars will recommend one of them to the board for approval. Getting a new practice field built allows the system to move forward with the next stages of constructing the new building.
Chief Operations Officer Tim Williams will also update the board on the latest ELOST collections.
Also, a summary of collections from each school to the United Way campaign will be presented. Employees donated money from their paychecks for the campaign.
West End Elementary will be the Focus on Student Achievement school.