Budget pressure from a sluggish collection period for the Board of Education seems to be waning as property taxes began rolling in during January, as reported at the meeting last week.
During that month, the board saw an increase in property tax collections of $11,765,764, leaving the uncollected balance at $10,475,620. But financial director Ron Wilson said that in February, they collected another $4,584,000, leaving $5,891,000 still needed.
In December 2009, they had only collected about $2.5 million, leaving them about $22 million in the hole. So these influxes of taxes in the last two months have relieved the school board’s budget tremendously.
Scores for Effingham County’s high schools from last fall’s end of course tests look promising, as the system performed above the state average in most subjects.
A strong suit for the schools seems to be in sciences with the system standing 14 points above the state average of 71 percent in physical science and 10 points above in biology. Effingham scores in social sciences were 70 percent in U.S. history and 75 percent in economics. However these scores were still above the state averages, which were 52 percent for U.S. history and 70 percent for economics.
This was the last time an EOCT will be given for algebra, and spring will be the last for geometry with Math I and Math II taking their places. With Math I and II being recorded for the first time, the system scored 23 points higher than the state average in both Math I and II.
For the Georgia High School Graduation Writing Test, the district’s mean score last fall was on par with the state at 221. The system’s percent of students meeting or exceeding expectations for the writing test went up 1 percent from fall 2008, but lags 2 percentage points behind the state’s 91 percent.
Specialists have been working on ways to improve both math and writing, by engaging students and teachers and training teachers on ways to bolster weak areas. Most of these techniques seem to be paying off, however, more will be known when spring scores come in and districts around the state that are not on a block schedule will be weighted in as well.
