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By Jeff Moore

Contributing writer

 

The Crisp County Board of Education recognized its paraprofessionals and teachers of the year during its work session Wednesday, Dec. 4.

Chairman Joe Joe Wright announced that Elaine Ellis is the 2025 Crisp County School System Teacher of the Year. She received a plaque from Wright and Assistant Superintendent Brandon Williams.

“We are very excited about this part of tonight’s meeting to recognize these individuals,” Wright said.

The 2025 Teachers of the Year were also honored for each of the individual Crisp County schools.

Betsy Estes was selected at Teacher of the Year at Crisp County Pre-Kindergarten, will Elaine Ellis was honored for Crisp County Primary School. At Crisp County Elementary School, Beth Stewart was awarded the Teacher of the Year honors. Terrance Mathis received the award for Teacher of the Year at Crisp County Middle School, while Mandy Wilson was awarded the honors for Crisp County High School.

Two staff members were honored as the 2025 Paraprofessionals of the Year — Penny McKee at CCPS and Mary Katherine Bruce at CCHS.

“We appreciate all that you all do for us,” Wright said. “All you do for the children and all you do for our community. Without you, none of this is possible. We thank you all.”

 

Primary instructional materials

Under a new state requirement, the board of education is required to confirm its instructional materials for primary school grades are high quality.

During the board’s work session Wednesday, Dec. 4, Williams discussed the Georgia Early Literacy Act that requires board of education to certify to Georgia Department of Education “high quality instructional materials” are being used in kindergarten through third grade.

“We have to do that by Dec. 15 of this year and then going forward, it has to be done by Aug. 1,” Williams said. “So we have to make sure we remember that going forward.

He explained that a committee made up of primary school Principal Leah Slimp and her committee have been vetting the instructional materials to see how they would rank with the state and if any improvement is needed.

“They took the rubric used the rubric just as it is and did that work and several of those members are here tonight,” Williams told the board. The rubric is used in Georgia to determine whether a given text meets the demands of rigor and complexity demanded for schools.

According to the agenda, the Georgia Literacy Act approved through HB 538 requires local boards of education to certify to the state that

Under the Georgia Early Literacy Act (HB 538), an explanation of it on the meeting agenda states the purpose of the vetting process is to review and vet all supplemental materials for quality and alignment to foundational reading skills and the science of reading.

It goes on to state that the committee in Crisp County used the GaDOE rubric to measure all eight sections: research alignment; explicit, systematic, cumulative, and diagnostic instruction; related elements (alignment to Ga ELA standards and assessments); phonological and phonemic awareness; phonics and word study; text reading and fluency; vocabulary; and listening comprehension and reading comprehension.

“I do want to thank that team for the work that they did with that project,” Williams said. “And we did find some areas that we could improve in by doing that. So it turned out to be it was a lot of work, but it turned out to be good work.”

what the law says is that

He said now the board has take action to show that members know that this work was performed.

He recognized Slimp, primary Assistant Principal Edward Hammock, and academic coaches Courtney Ellis and Miss Lindsay Willis for their work on the project.

The board of education were to consider adopting a resolution to formally confirm the division has met this new state requirement at its Dec. 9 regular meeting.

 

Other items for the board

The board of education will have several other items to discuss at its next meeting, including:

• A request from Coach Corey Williamson who is seeking permission for the Crisp County High School wrestling team to hold a fundraiser through LaunchFundraisers.com. Social media and email will be used in an attempt to raise funds. All proceeds will be used to support the needs of the wrestling program.
• Annual renewal of the school division’s cafeteria plan that allows employees agree to reduce their earnings by the amount of their employee benefit contributions and direct their employer to pay these costs on their behalf. This reduces the employee’s taxable wages, thereby reducing social security, state and federal withholding taxes. Participation in the Cafeteria Plan is approved annually by each employee. Williams said the board is required to approve a resolution on each year to continue offering the plan.

 

Noteworthy dates

The following are dates noted for the board of education that are upcoming over the next month.

• Dec 11-13 — Georgia School Board Association Annual Conference in Atlanta.
• 18 — Early release for students and staff.
• 19-31 — Christmas holidays.
• 1-2  — New Year’s holidays.
• 3 — Teacher planning/student holiday.
• 8 — Crisp County Board of Education work session at 7:15 p.m.