The School Board has three main powers that have a huge impact on our schools:
Our School Board consists of five people, so if three members vote the same way, they have the ultimate power. It’s important to note that the three moderate members of the school board are not returning in January. They’re either retiring or were defeated by far-right candidates in the primary. That’s why electing our Democratic candidates is so important. They work well together and share the same values of acceptance for all, putting students first, and respecting teachers. They will fight to ensure public funds stay in public schools and that our schools are safe. The superintendent often makes recommendations that the BOE has followed or tweaked in the past. However, if far-right candidates have the majority, they may reject his recommendations and lean into culture war issues instead of focusing on what students really need. A majority of three extreme school board members can remove entire items from the budget, terminate employees, and set harmful policies for our students. Do Georgia State Senators and House Members Impact Education? Yes! Our state delegation, comprised of state senators and house members, can propose education-related bills and vote on them. If those bills receive enough votes in the State Senate and State House, they go to Governor Kemp’s desk to sign into law. This process happened this past legislative session with Senate Bill 233, the voucher bill. This bill allows parents in “failing” school districts to get reimbursed with public tax money, up to $6500 per child, for homeschooling or sending their children to a private school. This bill allows public money to be used for private schooling. Similarly, in 2022, Governor Kemp signed the “Protect Students First Act” and a series of “divisive concepts” laws that prevent educators from discussing certain topics with students, such as same-sex marriage, issues of race, and certain historical topics that deal with racism. When Republicans have a majority in our state legislature, like they do now, we have to contend with culture war issues becoming law. Once laws are passed, the School Board, superintendent, and lawyers for the school system work together to determine how our schools will comply with them. Our local state senators and house members also vote on other education-related issues put forth by lawmakers from across the state of Georgia. Before voting, they often contact the school system to understand how certain legislation would affect us in Forsyth County. The Federal Government Plays a Role in Education, Too When the federal government passes laws relating to education or the Department of Education updates an existing law, our local Board of Education, superintendent and school lawyers work on how that will be implemented at the school level. This August, new changes to Title IX, which prohibits students and staff members from discrimination, will be mandated by the federal government. The changes include preventing discrimination based on gender identity, so our school system will determine what that looks like locally. Government Impact on Education All levels of government affect education, but our local Georgia State delegation and school board members have the most direct impact on daily decisions, so it’s crucial to vote for Democratic candidates.
Highlights from FY24 Forsyth County Schools Budget:
State and Federal Sources (47.70% or $311,231,022 in 2024) The primary source of funding is from the state and is based on Quality Basic Education Funding or QBE. This makes up $308 million of the $311 budgeted in 2024. It is a formula-based calculation focusing on:
The money comes from the state's general fund. Schools must submit their actual student population numbers twice a year to the state to get their allocation. The fund is not intended to fund 100% of the costs, and the school district must contribute a minimum of 5 mills from their property tax collection. Local Sources (52.30% or $341,161,924 in 2024) As you might expect, the primary source of local funding comes from property taxes on residential and commercial property. The calculation for property taxes is the millage times the assessed value of the property less exemptions. The Forsyth County Board of Assessors, an independent entity from the Board of Commissioners, is responsible for assessments. The millage relating to FCS is decided every year by the School Board, and then sent to the County Commissioners, who approve the millage for the entire county. FCS-related millage has two components:
The proposed millage for 2025 is 15.30, of which 1.418 is for bond payment and 5 is required by the State to be collected in order for FCS to receive QBE funding mentioned earlier. For example, $100,000 assessed value less exemptions x .0153 = $2,000. Discussion about what millage rate to approve directly impacts FCS’s budget. If property values go up, as they have this past year by around 6.89%, and the millage does not change, property owners pay more property taxes and the school gets additional funding from that source. Another local source of funds is the Title Ad Valorem Tax (TAVT), an upfront tax imposed on the fair market value of motor vehicles in Georgia. The TAVT provided $22 million of the $341 million budget in 2024. Funds for Food and Nutrition ($23,974,541 in 2024) Almost all federal funds used by FCS are used for food and nutrition programs, are accounted for separately, and do not form part of the budget approved by the BOE. Here is the breakout for 2024: Federal funds: $9,327,796 (USDA) State & Local: $14,646,745 Funds are used for food, supplies and staff primarily. There is an estimated fund balance of $20,590,608 in this program at the end of this school year, coming primarily from the USDA, to be used in future school years. Bonds and SPLOSTs To fund capital expenditures, FCS can issue bonds and/or have passed Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOSTs). Each is allocated to specific projects and has a start and end date. Funds can be used for construction and renovation or other capital expenditures. SPLOSTS funds are collected as an add-on to sales tax, are collected by local businesses and paid to the Georgia Department of Revenue, which then passes the funds back to FCS. Bonds are paid through an add-on to the millage as described earlier. The benefit of SPLOSTs is that they raise funds without further taxing property owners. After the BOE approves it, it must be passed by a referendum to be placed on a ballot. What about Charter Schools and Vouchers? Charter Schools are run entirely separately from traditional public schools and take away funds from the pool allocated to traditional public schools. Vouchers do exactly the same thing and, while small this year, representing only $140 million in its first year, we believe it to be a trojan horse for moving public money out of public schools and into private schools and homeschooling. More on the impact of vouchers and Charter Schools on public education in the next edition.
With a constitutional right to abortion abolished by the Supreme Court, a group of Republican extremists is busy opening the next front in their war on reproductive freedom: Attacking birth control. Last week, all but two Republican Senators voted to defeat the Right to Contraception Act, which would have created a federal right to access birth control. After the vote, Republicans protested that the vote was a meaningless “scare tactic,” because contraception is legal, but increasingly, anti-contraceptive rhetoric is being voiced in the mainstream, Trump has indicated he’s open to laws restricting or banning contraception, and since 2022, Republican leaders in 17 states have blocked Democratic legislation that would have assured access to birth control. So how will they do it?
Even in the face of this evidence, it seems incredible that such a basic and necessary aspect of reproductive healthcare could come under attack, yet far-right activists are building momentum to ban emergency contraception, IUDs, and even birth control pills, often by spreading lies and misinformation about how these technologies work. One such lie is that these contraceptive methods are “abortifacients,” that is, that they induce or cause an abortion. This was the tack taken to defeat birth control access bills in Missouri and Louisiana, The national abortion abolition group, Students for Life, lists all usual birth control methods (except condoms) as abortifacients, and says that they “end the lives” of a “preborn child” and “conceived person.” Reminder: The medical consensus is that pregnancy begins with the implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterine wall. A medication or device that prevents this from happening is NOT ending a pregnancy, it is preventing a pregnancy. If the Republicans follow the pattern they adhered to in overturning Roe, the next step in the campaign would be to pass a test law. Right now, the Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut ensures that access to contraception is a Constitutional right based on the right to privacy. In his Dobbs opinion, however, Clarence Thomas opined that the Court “should reconsider” its precedents rooted in privacy, basically issuing an open invitation to activists to want to assail contraception, same-sex, and interracial marriage. The next step in the extremist gameplan would be to pass a law banning some aspect of contraception, perhaps Plan-B emergency contraception, and have it considered by the Supreme Court. We’ve seen with other wedge issues that even fraudulent cases can make their way to the highest court, as when the Court upheld a website designer’s right to not create a website for a same-sex wedding (a request that, it turns out, was never made of her). Far-right activist groups recruit plaintiffs to serve in these sham legal proceedings, and will shop districts and jurisdictions to find a favorable hearing. This Supreme Court’s most conservative members, who all lied in their confirmation hearings about Roe v. Wade being settled precedent, have shown that they are willing to overturn established law if it appeals to them to do so, and the precedent protecting contraception could be next. Following the vote to block the Right to Contraception Act last week, Republican leadership urged their caucus to speak in support of birth control, and a few Senators dismissed the vote as liberal hysteria and scare tactics, with Katie Britt calling it a “campaign of fearmongering,” while then immediately making the fantastical claim that the Act would have required elementary schoolers to be given condoms. The Republican protestations that birth control is safe aside, this is a situation where we need to ignore what they say, and watch what they do. Senate Republicans have sent a clear message that they won’t lift a finger to protect your access to contraception. So what can you do?
As to why the far right is attempting to shift public perception on the issue of contraception, trying to read their minds leads to some dark places. But the effect, as with the overturning of Roe, would be to further diminish the power and choices of women, restricting their rights to their own bodies, plans, and destinies, and effectively making them second class citizens. In Georgia, we are already facing some of the highest maternal and infant mortality in the country. A lack of access to contraception would mean more delayed care and more bad health outcomes for women. This is what is on the ballot in November.
In Rolling Stone this month, a source close to the former president says, “Georgia is our laboratory,...If you can get this up and running in Georgia, you get a road map for other states, maybe the country as a whole.”
“The effort to suppress the vote in Georgia happens year-round, and the counter effort needs to be equally, if not more, robust,” said Saira Draper in the same article. She is a Democratic state representative who worked on voter-protection issues for the Biden campaign in 2020 and points to the need for “defending democracy every day, and for every election.” The people who made the comments at the meeting offered the usual disproven complaints: the 2020 election was stolen, Biden could not have won, Dominion voting machines cannot be trusted, and more. They suggested that their version of “election integrity” should appeal to all, regardless of party. Claiming a High Road to Undermine Certification Some of the comments illustrated their ground work to sow doubt in election processes and in the performance of the county election board:
In Fulton County, a far right elections board member refused to certify the Primary Election results. Earlier this month on the State Board of Elections, a moderate Republican was replaced with a party member who has no experience in elections administration but was heartily endorsed by the state GOP chairman, known for his endorsement of Trump. How This Could Play Out in November The disinformation and the installation of hard right officials–all enabled by suppressive legislation–is a pre-game to the chaos we witnessed after November 2020, when the hard right cast doubt on the General Election which resulted in the violence of Jan 6. Only this time they’ve had more time to prepare. If the General Election is close–and especially if ballot counting/tabulation of returns takes a long time, as it always will in Fulton County since it is the state’s largest county– the state elections board could take control of a county’s counting process (having created an inquiry function that allows it to delay certification). If the race is close and the state or county does not like the outcome, elections board officials at the state or local level could refuse to certify the vote, in turn delaying the electoral result, sending the race to court, and allowing Trump to claim whatever he wants about the race. What to Do Deniers’ plans thrive on regular citizens not knowing how the process is supposed to work; arm yourself with information and don’t be afraid to share it with people you know. (A note: Forsyth County’s BRE does not livestream or tape its meetings, which means these efforts are not on public display or record for the public to view [nor is it documented in the formal meeting summary]. A letter sent to the BRE in April 2024 requesting microphones for greater clarity and video recording so that county residents can view meetings, remains unanswered.)
Push back again those who want to undermine our votes:
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