New principal for North Hall High School

GAINESVILLE - Hall County School Board members Monday night chose a new principal for North Hall High School.

From 54 applicants and seven finalists the board picked Joe Gheesling Jr., a career navy pilot and commander with several years in education. He is currently principal of Newton High School in Covington.

Gheesling will fill the vacancy left when Dr. Gary Brown retired as principal of North Hall High. Assistant Superintendent of Personnel Dr. Richard Hill made the recommendation to hire Gheesling.

"He has 20 years of experience in the military and has 11 years of experience in public education," Hill said.

"I was just overwhelmed at the quality and number of candidates for this position," said Hall County School Superintendent Will Schofield.

Schofield said Gheesling would begin acting as principal of North Hall in June.

"He represents the type of leadership we encourage in Hall County," Schofield said.

The board still has to select new principals for Lula, Lyman Hall and Mt. Vernon elementary schools.

"We had between 80 and 90 applications for each one of those positions," Hill added. "We're going to be meeting Feb. 15 to paper screen the resumes and then we'll interview selected candidates on Feb. 26 and 27.

Hill said Hall County expects to hire around 300 new teachers for next year when the seventh annual Hall County Schools job fair is held Feb. 23d at the Gainesville Civic Center.

NEW GRADUATION REQUIREMENTS

School Board members approved the graduation requirements that ninth graders have to meet when they become seniors.

Superintendent Will Schofield said those state mandated requirements would limit some students.

"One of the things we thought was unfortunate is that it's going to limit choices for students who wanted to pursue more of a career/tech path," Schofield said.

Under the new requirements students must pass four units of math and four units of science to get a high school diploma.

DON'T CUT ECONOMICS

Now is not the time to reduce the high school economics course to half a unit according to Steven Wang, president of the Hall County Education Association.

Wang told school board members he objected to reducing economics instruction in Hall class rooms given the state's current real estate setback and said Hall is joining many other Georgia systems that are cutting the course back.

"That has produced a state that is near the top of bankruptcies, filings and foreclosures," Wang said.

Beginning next fall economics becomes half a course along with government in Hall schools.