Atlanta schools Superintendent Beverly Hall is scheduled to be a panelist March 18 during an invitation-only event at the USA TODAY headquarters in McLean, Va. Co-hosted by the Council of the Great City Schools, Hall will join more than a dozen superintendents as well as business and other leaders to talk about improving urban education.
The topic has been a passion of Hall’s for years. However, state and federal investigators continue to examine evidence of widespread test tampering in Atlanta schools, and Hall will step down from her Atlanta post on June 30 after 12 years on the job. KRISTINA TORRES
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Fulton County commissioners are troubled by the paltry turnout at public meetings to suggest transportation projects for the 2012 sales tax referendum. Only 30 people attended three meetings during the past two weeks. Commissioner Emma Darnell said it's probably because the state's largest county has been marginalized, having only one of 21 votes on the regional panel that will approve the project list. The mayors of Atlanta and Union City also have votes.
Chairman John Eaves told Public Works Director Angela Parker to try using the Internet to generate feedback, and a survey has been posted at www.FultonCountyGa.gov. A fourth meeting will be held Wednesday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at the Southwest Arts Center, 915 New Hope Road, Atlanta.
JOHNNY EDWARDS
Gwinnett
Commissioners to hold citizens forum
The Gwinnett County Board of Commissioners will sponsor a citizen forum at 7 p.m. Monday at the Gwinnett Historic Courthouse, 185 Crogan St., Lawrenceville.
The forum is the last of four events commissioners have sponsored in recent weeks to seek public input on a variety of issues. After a brief presentation on the county’s financial outlook, the forum will be open to questions and comments from the public. David Wickert
Southside
Fayette looks limiting number of house pets
“Yipping” is tough to regulate.
Fayette County Commissioners are mulling over a change in the ordinance that limits the number of pets residents can own. Policy permits three cats and dogs in residential districts. Homes with more are considered kennels.
But Commissioner Lea Hearn said he sees a distinction between an owner with four small “yipping” indoor dogs and someone with a pack of outside dogs that bark incessantly.
“I don’t know how we can regulate yipping,” he said, to the amusement of the rest of the board.
Pete Frisina, Fayette director of Community Development, will research the issue and present options to the board at a later meeting. Jill Howard Church
Atlanta
Two educators in ‘Porgy and Bess’ chorus
The chorus for the Atlanta Opera‘s sold-out run of “Porgy and Bess” features two music educators from Atlanta Public Schools: Miles and Adamsville elementary chorus teacher Letricia Henson and Douglass High choral director Ben Polite.
Both Henson and Polite are active in the local arts scene, according to the system’s TalkUp APS blog. Polite was featured this past summer as the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy in the musical “I Dream,” about the life of Martin Luther King Jr. Henson was featured in the operatic scene, “La Donna In Viola,” from Tyler Perry’s latest film, Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls.” Kristina Torres
DeKalb
Student plan protest over Oglethorpe speaker
Some Oglethorpe University students are planning to protest a guest lecturer, who is a well-known conservative and outspoken against same sex marriage -- Matthew J. Franck, who is a director of The Witherspoon Institute in Princeton, N.J.
The protest, scheduled for 4 p.m. Monday at Oglethorpe’s Emerson Student Center, will coincide with the lecture. Students at the DeKalb County school are promoting the protest on Facebook and in The Georgia Voice, a publication that promotes gay issues. Neither Franck nor a representative from Oglethorpe was available for comment.
Rich McKay
Northside
Forsyth holds planning workshops
The Forsyth County Planning and Development Department is hosting two workshops on its Comprehensive Plan so the public can see and hear about the decisions that have to be made to come up with a future development map, which is required every ten years by the state. The workshops are 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. today in the cafeteria of Brookwood Elementary School, at 2980 Vaughan Drive, Cumming, and 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday, March 14, in the cafeteria of cafeteria Coal Mountain Elementary School, 3455 Coal Mountain Drive, Cumming.
Jeffry Scott
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