District staff review federal accountability lists and Georgia Promise Scholarship; one school on state 'Promise' list

District staff walked trustees through state and federal accountability designations and what they mean for local schools. Miss Persinger reviewed how Georgia uses CCRPI component scores to populate federal identification lists: Comprehensive Support & Improvement (CSI), Targeted Support & Improvement (TSI), and Additional Targeted Support & Improvement (ATSI).

Persinger said Barrow County did not have any CSI schools based on 2023 data. She identified Winder Elementary as a TSI school for the 2024–25 school years based on the performance of its students with disabilities subgroup and described ongoing district support and intervention coordination with school leaders. Auburn Elementary was listed as ATSI based on 2023 data and will next be reassessed with 2026 calculations.

On state policy, Persinger described the Georgia Promise Scholarship (enacted by Senate Bill 233 in 2024) and eligibility rules: students must be enrolled in a Georgia public school for at least two semesters or be a rising kindergartner, must reside in the attendance zone of an identified school, and have a parent resident for at least one year unless the student is active‑duty military. The scholarship provides up to $6,500 annually for eligible students to apply toward education outside the public school; she noted that 69 district students used the program last year but the district does not receive school‑level breakdowns.

A board member asked about timing for test data and cut scores; Persinger said statewide results and cut‑score determinations that populate these lists are released later in the summer or fall after the tests conclude (tests finish May 2026).