A school of choice for wellness in Hall County

GAINESVILLE - Hall County School Board members Monday night designated Friendship Elementary School a "school of choice", a pilot school of wellness, the first in Hall County and one of the first in the nation.
It is part of a new campaign to reduce childhood obesity and it begins Thursday at Friendship. It was two weeks ago that plans for the pilot initiative were announced.

School system spokesman Gordon Higgins said the system's nursing and nutrition directors will play major roles in implementing the program with Minnesota-based United Health Care.

"We're having our first meeting Thursday with people at the state level to get us ready to ramp it up and get it going," Higgins said. "We're excited about it."

Principal Berry Walton said it really started earlier this year at Friendship.

"We kicked this off in January," Walton said. "Whether it was going to be a school of choice or just us down at Friendship Elementary trying to have our students become better people and we have three phases."

Walton said Hall County is one of only three or four school systems in the nation chosen by United Health Care to pilot its program to combat child obesity.

"The new SCOPE program, a wellness program involving school nurses, to my understanding, we're the first school in the nation to use that program," Walton said. "The money United Health Care is contributing right now is to increase the hours of school nurses. That's first and foremost so the nurses can get involved with this wellness concept not only in our school but in the entire system."

Walton said at Friendship, he wants to increase the exercise regimen in the morning and afternoon, and promote consumption of healthy nutritious snacks instead of cup cakes brought to school covered with icing.

Walton cited experts who have reported that unless the current epidemic of overweight and obesity among children and youths gets under control, today's young generation may be the first in history to have shorter life expectancy than their parents.

VISAS, NOT GREEN CARDS

Hall County School Board members approved sponsoring visas for seven foreign special education critical needs teachers. Associate Superintendent for Human Resources Dr. Richard Hill said the visas are good for up to six years and then the teachers have to apply for green cards for permanent resident status.

"The School District chose not to make that kind of commitment to go into the sponsorship of a green card," Hill said.

Hill said sponsorship cost and teachers with visas sufficient enough to meet system needs were two reasons for not sponsoring green card applications; the system bears the cost for the visa applications. Hill added that many systems won't even apply for visas for foreign instructors.

JOHNSON HIGH BEGINS SEARCH

Hall County Schools starts looking for a new Johnson High School Principal beginning Tuesday according to Dr.Hill. School Board members approved Dr. Damon Gibbs request to become full time director of SPLOST projects and school maintenance and leave his post as Johnson High principal.

"So we'll put the announcement up for Johnson High principal for the 2011-2012 school year," Hill said.

Hill added Dr. Gibbs has had a dual role this year managing maintenance and SPLOST and his principal's post and it's time to focus on one of the two positions.

NEW HOPE RULES

State Capital changes on which students qualify for HOPE scholarship money came to the Hall School Board's attention with a proposed revision. High School Valedictorians or salutatorians qualify for 100 percent HOPE tuition; Dr. Teri Sapp outlined the change.

"A student must be enrolled in the school from which he or she plans to graduate for their last two years of high school," Dr. Sapp said.

Sapp added students must also take at least one course per semester of those two years. Assistant Superintendent Dr. Eloise Barron said the revision was brought on because many middle school students are taking high school level courses and may not be in high school their junior and senior year.

The other way to get a HOPE award at 100 percent is to receive a Zell Miller Scholarship. To qualify for that a student must have 3.7 Grade Point Average and a 1200 SAT score or 26 on the ACT composite score.
Otherwise, students graduating with a 3.0 GPA get 90 percent tuition provided they maintain that grade point average through their college careers.