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Redmon retires as Northside principal
Evins addresses billboard issue
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REDMON

Northside Elementary Principal Dr. Gayle Redmon has announced her retirement after serving

 

DeKalb County for more than forty years in education.

 

At last week’s school board meeting, Northside Assistant Principal Beth Pafford told board members that Dr. Redmon will be missed.

 

"Dr. Redmon retired as of June 30. She has served DeKalb County Schools for 40 years," Pafford said. "It has been a big passion of hers to make sure students in this county receive an excellent education. She established a tradition of excellence at Northside. For three years she has been my mentor, my partner, and my friend. She will be greatly missed. I want to let her know that we greatly appreciate her."

 

A new principal at Northside is expected to be named by the next director of schools after that position has been filled.

 

Meanwhile, School Board Chairman W.J. (Dub) Evins, III addressed the board’s decision to cut $4,100 the school budget by discontinuing a billboard on Highway 70 displaying a picture of DCHS graduates. Evins, said while the billboard will no longer be used, plans are for outstanding students to be promoted in other ways.

 

"When we passed the budget we took out $4,100 because of the cost of the billboard," Evins said. "I want the public to know that we did cut that money from this category but we are looking at a number of other options for promoting students. We’ve sold three buses for $20,000, and we’re planning to take some money from transportation. We want to show our appreciation to students for their accomplishments, but we want to be in a position to spread that out among all the schools and not just for a few students at the high school."

 

Evins said he believes that the school system could find other ways to recognize students in a more cost-effective way.

 

"It is hard to identify them on that billboard," Evins said. "Anyone in marketing can tell you if you get too much on a billboard you are not going to be able to see anything. We just felt it was non-productive. We still want to promote those students, and we intend to do that."

 

The chairman said recognizing outstanding students on buses might be a better method.

 

"A lot of school systems are putting advertisements on their buses. We don’t want to advertise. We want to promote our students. By our next workshop or meeting, I’ll bring some photos of those. They are not distracting. We can have them made by a local sign company. If you want to promote your student council they can be placed on the side of a bus. There would be a lot of traffic with it. You could have a first-grade student who may be the principal of the day or something like that and put them on there. There are a lot of different ways to promote the students. So we’re not cutting it out. We’re expanding it. We hope the public understands we’re trying to promote more and not just on one billboard," Evins concluded.

 

Interim Director of Schools Dr. Danielle Collins also presented her monthly report on personnel at the meeting.

 

Resignations/Retirements:

 

•Pauline Braswell, Custodian at DeKalb Middle School.

 

•Carrie Lee, Pre-K Teacher at Smithville Elementary School.

 

•Amy Lee, Teacher at DeKalb Middle School.

 

•Shea Wiegle, Special Education Teacher at DCHS.

 

•Gayle Redmon, Principal at Northside Elementary School.