Latest news with #GuilfordCountyBoardofEducation
Yahoo
14-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Parents' bus requests carry big cost for schools
GUILFORD COUNTY – Guilford County Schools officials have not had much luck getting parents to stop signing up their children for school bus transportation that they have no intention of using, which is costing GCS millions of dollars. Faye Crowder-Phillips, the GCS executive director of transportation, told the Guilford County Board of Education in early 2024 that closing the large gap between the number of students assigned to buses and the number actually riding buses was one of her goals, but an update presented to the school board on Tuesday night showed almost no change in the numbers. In February 2024 Crowder-Phillips told the board that 29,159 students regularly rode school buses, but another 13,000 were assigned to buses at the requests of their parents even though they never rode. In Crowder-Phillips' presentation Tuesday night, she said there currently are 29,381 students riding buses, with more than 13,300 assigned but who never ride. That costs GCS money because it greatly contributes to reducing GCS's transportation system efficiency grade, which reduces how much of the system's expenses the state will reimburse. Crowder-Phillips said Tuesday that other changes that have been made over the past year, including use of a new bus route scheduling system, have increased the efficiency rating from 80% in the 2022-23 school year to 84.48% now. The state average is over 90%. Superintendent Whitney Oakley said that although more steps can improve that rating, including making more group bus stops instead of house-to-house stops, GCS probably can't hit 90% because it provides transportation to magnet programs for students who live in different attendance districts. Many school districts don't do that. In other business, the school board approved asking the Guilford County Board of Commissioners to approve an additional $50 million in bond funds to pay for HVAC and roofing projects at 11 school campuses, including these in High Point: Ferndale Middle HVAC work ($11.7 million), Johnson Street Global Studies roof replacement ($1.9 million) and Welborn Middle/Kearns Academy HVAC work ($6.1 million). The school board also received a long-expected GCS staff recommendation to close Southern Elementary School after Allen Jay Elementary in High Point and Sumner Elementary south of Greensboro are rebuilt. The Southern Elementary attendance district then would be divided between Allen Jay and Sumner. The board also heard complaints from five people about Summerfield Elementary School removing a children's book, 'And Tango Makes Three,' from the library after a complaint from the conservative group Moms for Liberty. The book is based on the true story of two male penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo who took in an orphaned baby penguin and raised it together. The book is often criticized by conservative groups as pushing a 'homosexual agenda.'
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Guilford schools begin move to new HQ
GUILFORD COUNTY — Guilford County Schools has begun its central office consolidation and move out of downtown Greensboro to a building near Friendly Center. In March 2024, the Guilford County Board of Education and Guilford County Board of Commissioners authorized the purchase of the former ITG Brands building at 714 Green Valley Drive for $9.5 million, about half the assessed value of just under $19 million. District officials began to explore the option to surplus and eventually sell the district's legacy office buildings on Eugene Street, Washington Street, Market Street and Prescott Street in downtown Greensboro and the Laughlin Professional Development Center in Summerfield. The new site is approximately 7.7 acres with 144,000 square feet and will house more than 400 employees. Several departments, including Human Resources, Finance and Technology, have already completed the move, with others moving in throughout the next several weeks. The building is open to the public. GCS officials say the move will increase efficiency and collaboration by reducing travel times and operational costs by bringing several administrative departments under one roof. Among them are Technology, Safety, Operations, Human Resources, Financial Services, Academics, Early Learning, Research and Accountability, Exceptional Children's Services, and Communications. The school district's 2019 Facilities Master Plan included closing 11 administrative buildings and spending $30 million to consolidate the school departments. Instead of using bond dollars, GCS will sell the five administrative surplus properties, and the proceeds will pay for the Green Valley property. All district-owned property must be offered first to the Guilford County Board of Commissioners before being offered to the public for sale. Additionally, the district has opened its Community Education Center in the Gateway Research Park on Florida Street in Greensboro to serve as a hub for several departments, including Guilford Parent Academy, Student Assignment, Counseling, Multi-Language Learners, Social Work, Career and Technical Education and Choice Programs. The Community Education Center will also serve as an enrollment center for families to be able to access all needed services in one place. The site includes flex spaces for tutoring, pre-kindergarten evaluations, adult education, professional development and community meeting rooms for students and adults. In the fall, the facility will also host Guilford County Board of Education meetings. In 2022, GCS announced a partnership with North Carolina A&T State University and Impact Data to build the Community Education Center. The North Carolina General Assembly included a provision in the state budget to allow the Gateway Research Park to enter into a lease agreement with the Guilford County Board of Education for a minimum term of 50 years — a requirement for the use of the one-time federal funding to cover the costs of construction of the center.
Fox News
24-03-2025
- Health
- Fox News
North Carolina family can sue over COVID-19 vaccine administered without consent, court rules
A North Carolina mother and her son can sue a public school system and a doctors' group for allegedly giving the boy a COVID-19 vaccine without consent, the state Supreme Court ruled. The ruling handed down Friday reverses a lower-court decision that a federal health emergency law prevented Emily Happel and her son Tanner Smith from filing a lawsuit. Both a trial judge and the state Court of Appeals had ruled against the two, who sought litigation after Smith received an unwanted vaccine during the height of the coronavirus pandemic. Smith was vaccinated in August 2021 at age 14 despite his opposition at a testing and vaccination clinic at a Guilford County high school, according to the family's lawsuit. The teenager went to the clinic to be tested for COVID-19 after several cases among his school's football team, the lawsuit says. He did not anticipate that the clinic would also be administering vaccines. He told staff at the clinic that he did not want a vaccination, and he did not have a signed parental consent form to receive one. But when the clinic was unable to reach his mother, a worker instructed a colleague to "give it to him anyway," Happel and Smith claim. Happel and Smith filed the lawsuit against the Guilford County Board of Education and the Old North State Medical Society, an organization of physicians who helped operate the school clinic. The mother and son made accusations of battery and alleged that their constitutional rights were violated. Last year, a panel of the intermediate-level appeals court ruled unanimously that the federal Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act shielded the school district and the physicians' group from liability. The law places broad protections and immunity on various people and organizations who perform "countermeasures" during a public health emergency. An emergency declaration in response to COVID-19 was made in March 2020, activating the federal law's immunity provisions, the state's high court noted on Friday. Chief Justice Paul Newby wrote in the prevailing opinion that the law did not prevent the mother and son from suing on allegations that their rights in the state constitution had been violated. He said a parent has the right to control their child's upbringing and the "right of a competent person to refuse forced, nonmandatory medical treatment." Newby wrote that the law's plain text prompted a majority of justices to conclude that its immunity only covers tort injuries, which is when someone seeks damages for injuries caused by negligent or wrongful actions. "Because tort injuries are not constitutional violations, the PREP Act does not bar plaintiffs' constitutional claims," he said. The court's conservative justices backed Newby's opinion, including two who wrote a separate opinion suggesting the immunity found in the federal law should be narrowed further. Associate Justice Allison Riggs, a liberal who wrote a dissenting opinion, said that state constitutional claims should be preempted from the federal law and criticized the court's majority for a "fundamentally unsound" interpretation of the constitution. "Through a series of dizzying inversions, it explicitly rewrites an unambiguous statute to exclude state constitutional claims from the broad and inclusive immunity," Riggs said.
Washington Post
22-03-2025
- Health
- Washington Post
Mom can sue over son's unwanted coronavirus shot, North Carolina high court rules
A mother can proceed with her lawsuit against a public school board and medical provider after her son was given a covid-19 vaccination without consent, North Carolina's Supreme Court has ruled. The court's opinion, issued Friday, came after Emily Happel sued Guilford County Board of Education and Old North State Medical Society in August 2022, alleging battery and violation of state and federal constitutional rights after her son, Tanner Smith, received a first dose of the Pfizer vaccine against his wishes and without her consent.
