JacksonHeraldTODAY

The Jackson County school board named John Green, a high school principal in Alabama, as the school system's new superintendent during a brief called meeting Thursday that preceded Jackson County Comprehensive High School graduation exercises.

He takes over for Shannon Adams, who retiring because of health reasons. Adams has been the system superintendent since 2006.

Chairperson Lynn Wheeler-Massey opened the meeting, which was held in a classroom at JCCHS, and made the motion to hire Green "pursuant to the contract as presented." Those on hand in the audience applauded after the unanimous vote. They also gave a round of applause to Adams.

"We have a new superintendent, and I think you folks are going to be extremely happy," Wheeler-Massey said. "He's very excited about coming to Jackson County."

Green is principal of a high school in Madison, Ala., that is under construction. He retired from Gwinnett County Public Schools in June 2011 as an area superintendent.

Meanwhile, Adams expressed his gratitude to those on hand.

"I wouldn't have made it without all y'all," Adams said. "I appreciate you so much, and thank you everything you've done for me."

Said Wheeler-Massey: "We appreciate you and what you've done for our school system."

Kings Bridge Middle School made a significant improvement in the percentage of eighth graders passing a state-mandated writing test.

However, officials with the Jackson County School System say there’s still work to be done to get more kids meeting and exceeding state writing standards.

“We’re already in a very good place, but it’s exciting to see how we can take it to the next level,” said Amity Hardigree, the district’s literacy specialist, during the March 19 board of education meeting.

Georgia requires that third, fifth, eighth and 11th grade students take a writing assessment. For eighth graders, students have 100 minutes to write an essay from an assigned topic. The writing assessment is given in January and later scored by two raters. Local school systems recently received those results. [Full Story »] 

As the Jackson County Board of Education learned on Monday, if something is too good to be true, it probably is.

After initially approving its 2012-2013 school calendar with no employee furlough days — for the first time in at least two years — the BOE revised its calendar this week to include four furlough days next school year.

“That might have been a little bit too ambitious,” superintendent Shannon Adams said of the initial calendar.

Two of the four furlough days — also called calendar reduction days — will be tacked on to the Christmas break. Instead of starting winter break on Friday, Dec. 21 (as was initially adopted), the holiday will start on Wednesday, Dec. 19. [Full Story »]