GC&SU left open as other schools close

When public schools shut down this past week, many members of the GC&SU community were left to wonder why the their university stayed open.

President Dorothy Leland said that GC&SU was not a part of Gov. Sonny Perdue’s order to close schools this past Monday and Tuesday, Sept. 26 -27.

“The order didn’t cover us,” Leland said. “We’re a state agency, and the governor didn’t expect the state agencies to close.”

Leland said a majority of the people at GC&SU are not commuters, so there was no reason to shut the school down.

“Other schools were shut down mainly to save diesel fuel cost for school bus runs,” Leland said. “Most of our students aren’t commuters. We actually save more money for having them stay right here.”

One school that did change policy was The University of Georgia. Leland said in an email that she has no way to explain their action.

“The University of Georgia is the only USG (University System of Georgia) institution that granted extra days of annual leave to staff,” Leland said. “I am not aware of the mitigating circumstances that warranted this action.”

Leland went on to say in the E-mail that GC&SU was among several schools ordered to stay in session.

“We are not authorized to grant this leave,” Leland said. “In fact, the interim chancellor of the University System of Georgia contacted system presidents about this situation and explicitly told us not to copy the UGA action unless there are mitigating circumstances.”

Some GC&SU staff members were put in a tough spot because of the shut down. Gina Peavy, executive assistant to the vice president of Student Affairs, has a seven-year-old daughter who normally attends a Baldwin County public school. Because of the unexpected closure, Peavy had to rely on family members to help look after her daughter.

“She had to spent a couple of days with her grandmother, which created a lot of confusion about buying food for her and where they were going to stay,” Peavy said. “This made me have to spend more money on things that the school would normally have done.”

On a normal school day, Peavy’s daughter also attends an after-school program. Even though the program’s week was shortened, Peavy still had to pay for the services.

“My daughter goes to the after-school program, and they are charging me for all week instead of just the days that she goes, which is really not fair,” Peavy said.

Cathy Crawley, associate director of Financial Aid, also had issues with Georgia Military College High School.

“Even though the schools were closed, sports were not,” Crawley said. “So what that meant for me was double the trips to and from school. It might have saved the state more money, but just a regular person had to spend more.”

Other members of GC&SU’s staff did not have as much of a problem with the closure. Senior Secretary of Accounting Susan Whittle’s daughter also stayed with her grandmother. Whittle did not see this as an inconvenience, only because she and her daughter were already staying with family members because of construction.

“If I was not already living (with my parents), I think it would have been really hard. That is over 30 minutes away, which would have cost me a lot in gas.”

Even after her experience, Crawley does not think GC&SU should have closed to benefit the staff.

“I think it would have hurt students because of midterms coming up and the confusion that it would have caused,” Crawley said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Sep 30 2005. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry