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Forsyth County Board approves 2025 legislative priorities focused on school safety, mental health and funding
Summary
The Forsyth County Board of Education unanimously approved its 2025 legislative priorities, emphasizing school safety, social-emotional health, counselor staffing ratios, funding for school resource officers and student advocacy specialists, and state funding to cover training mandates such as dyslexia literacy.
The Forsyth County Board of Education approved its 2025 legislative priorities by unanimous vote at a Jan. 7 special meeting, centering the district’s requests to the Georgia General Assembly on school safety, social-emotional health, and adequate funding for mandated programs.
Board leadership said the priorities were developed to align with the district’s 2022–2027 strategic plan and to ensure local autonomy. The board asked the legislature to continue full funding for the Quality Basic Education (QBE) formula and to consider local tax exemptions and reassessment caps when calculating fair‑share contributions to QBE funding.
The board’s priorities seek state action on several safety and student‑support items: reducing student‑to‑professional ratios for school counselors to meet the nationally recommended 250:1 ratio; providing state funding for school safety measures including security upgrades, training, mental‑health supports, and crisis prevention and response; and seeking funding for school resource officers (SROs) and student advocacy specialists (SAS). Board members said the district has at least one SRO in every school and highlighted a locally developed student advocacy specialist program.
The board also asked legislators to remove barriers to sharing student behavior and criminal background information between schools and across communities, and to consider stronger legal consequences for inaccurate discipline reporting at enrollment. Board members noted that student records transfers can take days and that delays — “up to 10 days” in-state and longer for out-of-state transfers, as stated at the meeting — can impede schools’ ability to place appropriate supports.
As an example of unfunded mandates, the board cited recent dyslexia literacy legislation that requires substantial teacher training; at the meeting staff said teachers may spend roughly 25–30 hours on required training and the district wants state funding to cover the cost of effective implementation of new mandates.
Board members described the packet of priorities as a request to the legislature — the board cannot create law but can ask elected representatives to act. The board will post the approved priorities for public review, the superintendent said, and will continue discussions with the county’s legislative delegation.
Votes at a glance: approval of 2025 legislative priorities (motion, second, unanimous voice vote).
