Scott Austensen, the Deputy Superintendent of Finance and Business Operations for the Georgia Department of Education, presented the FY2014 Amended budget to the Joint Education Appropriations Subcommittee on the morning of Thursday, January 16th.  Highlights include:

• Redirect $700,000 from the IT services program into the Georgia Virtual Schools program.  This is intended for the development of 20 Virtual School courses.
• Redirect funds from the Georgia Department of Education to the Governor's Office of Student Achievement to move the Governor's Honors program into GOSA. (There is no reduction in funding or programmatic activity).
• $130.5 million for a midterm adjustment to QBE
• $25 million for OneGeorgia Authority to provide grants to districts for digital education and wireless technology enhancements

The State Board of Education met on Thursday, 16th.  The Rules Committee met at 9:45am with the majority of their agenda dedicated to discussing curriculum for eleven Career Cluster Pathways including Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources; Architecture and Constriction; Arts, Audio Visual Technology, and Communications; Energy; Finance; Health Sciences; Hospitality and Tourism; Law, Public Safety, Corrections, and Security; Marketing; and Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.  Several board members commended the staff for their hard work on this initiative and the design of the courses. However, they also cautioned them to make sure that they are fully vetting the courses with the business community and experts in each field.  The staff assured the committee that they are in constant communication with stakeholders to create courses that will teach students the real world skills necessary to get jobs in each of the fields represented in the Career Cluster Pathways.  The committee discussed an item in which the list of state-funded courses is being amended for the 2014-2015 school year to include the addition of International Baccalaureate (IB) Courses and Career Cluster Pathways courses. 

In the afternoon Committee of the Whole session, most of the action items from committee meetings were added to the consent agenda.  To view a list of the items, CLICK HERE.  Much of the meeting was focused on the Superintendent's Report in which Dr. John Barge brought on several Department of Education staff to update the Board.  First, Dr. Barge presented the results of a RESA survey regarding the first year implementation of Common Core standards.  Results showed strong agreement in support for the standards with the exception of high school mathematics.  Dr. Barge mentioned potential to refine high school math standards.

Susan Andrews, the Deputy Superintendent for Race To The Top Implementation, informed the Board that the Race to the Top Grant will be ending in September of this year.  Georgia has received extensions on the grant in order to continue development on Teacher and Leader Keys Effectiveness System and the College and Career Readiness Performance Index. 

Bob Swiggum, the Chief Information Officer for the Department of Education, presented plans for PeachNet infrastructure upgrades and plans to provide every classroom in Georgia with Internet access.  By July 2015, each district will have 100mbps Internet infrastructure in place. By 2018, the state plans to provide internet access in every classroom. 

Sam Rauschenberg, the Deputy Director of the Governor's Office of Student Achievement, delivered a report about Governor Deal's Digital Learning Task Force.  To view the final report of the task force, CLICK HERE.