The Oconee County Board of Education this evening officially selected Wayne Bagley from among three finalists to fill the Post 5 position on the Board left vacant when Tom Breedlove resigned on May 10 and moved out of state.
The announcement brings to an end a lengthy selection process that first saw the Board attempt to fill the vacancy from among the four announced candidates for other positions on the Board and then switch to an open competition that brought in 17 applicants.
The official selection of Bagley this evening came after the Board voted to go into executive session at the end of its regular meeting, which started at 4:30 p.m. at the school system’s administrative offices at 34 School street in Watkinsville
Bagley and Burnette attended the meeting and stayed after the regular meeting ended at 5:30, though no official indication had been given that an announcement was to be made.
After about five minutes in executive session, the Board returned to the meeting room.
Board Chairman David Weeks asked for the agenda of the meeting to be modified so the Board could announce the selection of the Post 5 member.
Weeks then nominated Bagley, who was supported by the three other Board members.
Weeks told Bagley he didn’t know “whether to wish you good luck or to tell you to run for the hills right now. But you are on it. So congratulations to you.”
Superintendent John A. Jackson gave me a prepared press release as soon as the announcement was made, and the announcement was put onto the school system web site after the meeting.
“At the end of the day, Mr. Bagley represented the best of some attractive choices in filling this important position,” the news release quotes Weeks as saying. “We were thankful to have three strong finalists from an impressive field of applicants for the appointment.”
Bagley is vice president of development for Lassiter Properties, Inc. Based in Morrow, southeast of Atlanta, Lassiter owns and operates timberlands in the U.S.
Bagley holds a bachelor’s degree in finance from the University of Georgia and a master’s degree from West Georgia College.
Bagley will fill out the term of Breedlove, which runs through 2012.
At least one more new face will join the Board after the November elections. Mack Guest was defeated in the July Republican primary by Mark Thomas.
Thomas faces Democrat Carter Strickland on the November ballot.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Thursday selected Vice Chair Kim Argo to move into the open position of Board chair and, without considering seeking applications from the public, appointed former Board Member Wayne Bagley to replace Argo.
The Board also selected Board Member Amy Parrish as vice chair to replace Argo.
Argo, whose term would have expired in 2022, will now fill out Tom Odom’s terms as chair, which ends in 2024. Odom, re-elected only last November, stepped down on Aug. 9, citing health reasons, with his tenure ending on Wednesday.
At its Jan. 3 meeting, the Oconee County Board of Education is scheduled to swear in two members, bringing to an end a year that saw one board member resign, the board announce and then abandon a plan to replace the member, and voters toss out an incumbent.
Mark Thomas will join the Board at that meeting as Post 2 member after handily defeating both incumbent Post 2 Board member Mack Guest in the July Republican primary and Democrat Carter Strickland in the November general election.
Kim Argo, who ran unopposed in both the Republican primary and in the general election in November, also is scheduled to be sworn in for a second four-year term. She holds Post 3.
The two will join Wayne Bagley, chosen by the Board on Oct. 4 to replace Post 5 Board member Tom Breedlove, who resigned on May 10 after he decided to move out of the state to take a new job.
The terms of Board Chairman David Weeks, Post 4 member Mike Hunter and Bagley will expire in 2012. The terms for Argo and Thomas run until 2014.
On May 19, the Board announced it would turn to the four candidates who had filed for the Post 2 and 3 positions to find a replacement for the Post 5 vacancy.
That meant that Argo and Guest, along with Weeks and Hunter, were inviting Argo and Guest, along with Thomas and Strickland, to ask to be considered to replace Breedlove.
In the end, only Strickland said he was interested, and the Board decided on June 14 that it would pass Strickland over and seek applicants from the general public.
Bagley was chosen from 17 applicants after the Board shortened the list to three on Aug. 9 and interviewed those finalists on Sept. 2. Bagley was sworn in on Oct. 11, or a week after his selection.
In a conversation with me on Nov. 2, Weeks said the board had learned from the experience of selecting the Post 5 replacement.
“I know we have taken some heat on the process we went through,” he said. “I think in the end it did work out the way it was supposed to work out.”
Weeks said if he could go back to May 10, he would propose opening up the process “right off the bat.” But he said it was easy to second guess the decision and he didn’t want to do that.
Weeks said he didn’t think there would be any long-term consequences of the decision process and he is very pleased with the selection of Bagley.
According to the official minutes of the meeting, that was at 5:22 p.m. The Board returned from executive session at 5:33 and announced the selection of Bagley.
“I know that 11 minutes does seem like it was already predetermined,” Weeks said in our conversation. But he said that was not the case.
The Board had discussed the three candidates following their interviews on Sept. 2, Weeks said.
According to the official minutes of that meeting, the Board spent a little less than an hour and a half in executive session after the Sept. 2 interviews.
“At that time,” Weeks said, “We didn’t have a consensus.”
Weeks told me he encouraged the Board members to talk one-on-one with the candidates on their own, and that he had talked with Townsend by telephone and had lunch with Bagley and Burnette.
Weeks said he also encouraged the Board members to exchange information and ideas, though not in groups of three, since that would violate the state’s open meetings laws.
Weeks said the Board did not discuss the three candidates in meetings held on Sept. 13 and 20, because Guest missed the first of those meetings and Weeks missed the second.
So the next discussion of the full board about the three finalists was on Oct. 4, he said.
“When we got there, everybody said Wayne Bagley was their choice,” Weeks said.
Superintendent John A. Jackson attended the two executive sessions where the three finalists were discussed, according to Weeks, but he did not express his opinion, and the Board did not ask.
“He didn’t play any role whatsoever,” Weeks said.
No reporters for the papers were present when the Board came out of executive session on Oct. 4 and announced Bagley’s selection, and none of the papers mentioned the small amount of time the Board needed to select Bagley at that meeting in the stories they wrote about the meeting.
The Athens Banner-Heraldhad a story in its Oct. 5 edition about Bagley’s selection, and The Oconee Enterprise and The Oconee Leader had stories in their Oct. 7 editions.
Oct. 4 was a Monday, and that is the final day for copy for the Leader. The Enterprise normally includes in its Thursday editions stories from meetings on Tuesday nights.
Reporter Kathy Russo from the Enterprise was present at the Oct. 4 meeting but left when the Board went into executive session.
Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources Brook Whitmire sent a press release immediately after the meeting to the three newspapers, according to the response to an open records request I filed with the school office on Oct. 17.
The meeting ended at 5:35 p.m., and the news releases were sent at 5:46 and 5:47.
Superintendent Jackson handed me a copy of that news release about that same time.
The news release contained a lengthy quote from Weeks explaining the selection of Bagley and noting his credentials.
The Enterprise used the quote in its story, written by Russo, while Ryan Blackburn from the Banner-Herald used a part of the quote. Reporter Katie Tavernier did not use the quote in her story in the Leader.
According to an email message I received on Oct. 18 from Deborah Epps, administrative assistant to Superintendent Jackson, Jackson called Tavernier after the meeting because Epps had told Tavernier earlier in the day that she did not expect an announcement of a selection at the meeting.
Tavernier quoted Jackson praising Bagley rather then Weeks in her story.
The Jan. 3 work session where Argo and Thomas are scheduled to be sworn in starts at 5 p.m. at the school system’s administrative offices, 34 School street in Watkinsville.
The ongoing dispute between the Board of Education and the Board of Commissioners took a dramatic turn on Monday with the remotely connected, but live streamed, meeting of the Board of Education.
After allowing Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell to speak for six minutes as a registered outside speaker, the School Board, led by Board Member Tim Burgess, spent 29 minutes responding critically.
***Cost Of Tackle Football Fee To Increase By $20***
Oconee County Schools is initiating a new fee schedule on July 1 for use of its athletic facilities by the Oconee County Parks and Recreation Department that, according to the county, will increase the costs to the county by about $60,000.
Supt. Jason Branch informed the county in a letter dated June 26, 2019, that the School system plans to terminate a 2010 agreement with the county that covers the use by the county and the school system of county and school system facilities.
Oconee County Board of Education Chair Tom Odom and Board Member Tim Burgess announced on Friday that they plan to seek reelection and qualify for the May 19 Republican Party primary.
Board of Education Member Wayne Bagley announced that he will not seek reelection, creating an open seat on the five-person Board. The terms of School Board Member Kim Argo and School Board Member Amy Parrish do not expire until 2022.
Members of the Oconee County Board of Education on Monday went out of their way to show their lack of enthusiasm for the county’s plans to build two roundabouts at the entrances to Malcom Bridge Middle School.
“I want to get on the record that this is not our project,” Board member Tim Burgess said.
Oconee County has abandoned plans to build a roundabout at the parent entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School, cutting in half the number of planned or constructed roundabouts on Malcom Bridge Road between Mars Hill Road and Lenru Road.
Construction of the roundabout at the bus and staff entrance to Malcom Bridge Middle School and Malcom Bridge Elementary School will begin in spring and be completed before school starts in August, according to Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chair John Daniell.
The Oconee County Board of Education voted unanimously tonight (Monday) to approve the redistricting plan put forward by school administrators on Sept. 18 to accommodate the new Dove Creek Elementary school set to open next academic year.
None of the parents of students currently in Malcolm Bridge Elementary School who will be moved to Rocky Branch Elementary School next year spoke up at the meeting, though they registered their unhappiness with the plan at a meeting with the Board on Oct. 10.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday granted the rights of way and easements to the county for roundabouts at the two entrances to Malcom Bridge Middle School, but with conditions.
The Board of Education said the county has to provide “assurance” that the work on the entrances will be completed by the beginning of the school year in August.
The Oconee County Board of Education on Monday refused to grant the county the rights of way and easements for construction of roundabouts at the two entrances to Malcom Bridge Middle School.
The inaction is an attempt by the Board of Education to thwart the efforts by the county Board of Commissioners to build the roundabouts.
A standard feature of the regular meetings of the Oconee County Board of Education is a report from Chief Financial Officer Saranna Charping on the collections from the Education Local Option Sales Tax.
Charping’s report on the sales tax on Monday showed a sharp increase in sales tax revenue in December of 2017, but that followed months of slow growth and three months where revenue in 2017 was lower than a year earlier.
Oconee County Schools last week sent out a news release to 17 media outlets and journalists announcing that Board of Education Post 2 Member Amy Parrish plans to run for re-election this year.
It also posted the announcement on the front page of Oconee County Schools web site with a link to an inside page containing a picture of Parrish, an endorsement of her by Board Chair Kim Argo, and a biographical sketch of Parrish.
The statement quotes Parrish as saying “I would be honored to continue in this role with such a dedicated Board, as we remain fully committed to the sustained excellence for which Oconee County Schools is known.”
The Oconee County Board of Education spent an hour tonight interviewing the three applicants for its open Post 5 position, tossing them a series of questions on such topics as the responsibility of the board, perceived strengths and weaknesses of the school system and how the board members should handle complaints from the public.
Applicants Wayne Bagley, Michael Burnette and Glenn Townsend, seated at a table in front of the board members, answered the questions in rotation, and they gave mostly similar answers to the questions posed.
Bagley, a vice president of development for Lassiter Properties, made reference to his experience on the Oconee County Citizen Advisory Committee for Land Use and Transportation Planning in response to several of the questions to indicate his familiarity with local governmental issues.
Burnette repeatedly made reference to his experience as a businessman. He is an area manager for Tires Plus.
Townsend, a retired teacher and administrator in the Oconee County system, stressed his knowledge of the system and of educational issues generally.
The applicants recognized that the Board of Education sets policy, but it does not run the schools day-to-day.
They also said that complaints from the public should be directed to the school administration and that board members should not get involved.
Candidates were given three minutes to answer questions, which board members took turns in asking.
Burnette said the biggest strength of the Oconee County school system is the “teachers, parents and the students.”
“I’m going to have to say it is the community,” Townsend said.
“I think it is the students,” Bagley said.
Townsend said that one of the biggest problems facing the schools is a lack of maintenance people “to take care of the plant and facilities.”
“The teacher-parent communication is something that I think could use a little help,” Bagley said.
“Just like in business when you have high performers and low performers, the low performers are the ones that get the most attention,” Burnette said. He said all students need to be given attention.
Near the end of the interview session, board member Mack Guest asked each applicant to indicate what he would cut if the school budget needed to be trimmed more.
Bagley said he didn’t know what he would cut, but he would protect the teachers.
Burnette said he would look for whatever did not affect the classroom.
Townsend said he would focus on such things as lights that didn’t need to be on, travel that was not necessary and ways to make the bus system more efficient.
Only about 20 people attended the session, which was held at the superintendent’s office in Watkinsville.
The Post 5 position became vacant in May when Tom Breedlove resigned and moved out of the county. Seventeen citizens applied for the opening, and the three candidates interviewed have been selected by the board as the finalists.
Board Chairman David Weeks said after the meeting tonight that he expected the board to make its decision on Breedlove’s replacement by October.
***Sales Tax Revenues Allocated For New Classrooms***
Oconee County Schools had available at the end of August nearly $2.7 million in federal relief funds allocated to the schools, Liz Harlow, chief financial officer for the system told School Board members on Monday.
Harlow, making her first report after having been appointed chief financial officer at the Board’s Work Session a week earlier, also reported that collections for the system’s Education Local Option Sales Tax (ELOST) were up 25 percent from July of last year.
Construction of the planned entranceway to the new Dove Creek Elementary School off Hog Mountain Road in the far west of Oconee County has hit a major snag.
The county has discovered that a gas pipeline owned by the City of Winder is along and possibly under Hog Mountain Road, making it impossible to build the entranceway as originally planned without relocating the pipeline.
Oconee County Board of Commissioners Chairman John Daniell appeared at the Monday meeting of the Oconee County Board of Education to reassure Board of Education members that the county is moving expeditiously on roadwork around Dove Creek Elementary School, set to open next school year.
Daniell’s comments followed questions from Board of Education members about the county’s work on the entrances to the school at the Jan. 22 meeting and again on Monday and reports from Facilities Director Jake Grant that the county was behind on the project.
The Oconee County Board of Education gave no indication at its work session on Monday that it is likely to ask the administration of the county school system to modify the proposed redistricting plan for the county’s elementary schools.
Board Chair Tom Odom and Board members Tim Burgess and Wayne Bagley did ask questions of the school administration reflecting the comments made by citizens about the plan at the Board’s Oct. 10 Listening Session.
Kim Argo, chair of the Oconee County Board of Education, thanked the members of the Board of Commissioners at the beginning of the joint meeting of the two boards on Wednesday night “for coming and breaking bread with us and sitting down to have a conversation.”
Facilitator Keith Everson, executive director of the Northeast Georgia Regional Educational Service Agency, said “you all should be commended for getting together like this and talking about what you do. This doesn't happen everywhere.”
The two Board avoided the many topics that have divided them over the last several years, such as the construction of the entrance to Dove Creek Elementary School, roundabouts at Malcom Bridge Middle School, and fees the school system is charging the county for use of its athletics facilities.
The Oconee County Republican Party leadership sent messages to the Oconee County Board of Education Tuesday through four nonbinding questions it placed on the ballot.
In responding to those questions, voters using the Republican ballot said clearly that they, not Board members, should fill vacancies on the Board, and citizens more than 70 years old should receive a reduction in their school property taxes.
