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Georgia Milestones return to classrooms after two-year hiatus State reimplements exams used to decide placement By CANDY WAYLOCK candy@appenmedia.com
Shown is the property on Thompson Road where the new Fire Station 42 will be erected as of November 2021.
FILE PHOTO
City to resume with Fire Station 42 construction By CHAMIAN CRUZ chamian@appenmedia.com MILTON, Ga. — Community Development Director Bob Buscemi said Milton is looking at saving $400,000 on revised construction plans to replace Fire Station 42 on Thompson Road. During the Feb. 23 City Council meeting, Buscemi said that while the city had budgeted around $4 million for the project about three years ago, all four bids it received in August ranged
from $4.65 million to $5.28 million. Last month, Buscemi also said that due to rising construction costs and supply-chain delays brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, the city was unable to deliver on its promise for a “bigger, better, more Miltonesque” fire station by the end of 2021. So, city staff got to work, Buscemi said. “We did what we always do, which is value engineering in-house,” Buscemi said. “We try to bring everything
in within the budget, so we sat there, and we really worked hard and with the entire team, we put our heads together and, basically, I came up with about $750,000 worth of savings. … I was real proud of that.” But by the time the city put the project out to bid again, Buscemi said cost escalations led to just $400,000 in savings, bringing the new total for the project to $4.11 million.
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ATLANTA — High stakes testing returns to the classroom this spring after two years of COVID-19 disruption meant few penalties for low performance and participation. That won’t be the case this year. “[Georgia] Milestones tests will proceed and they will count,” said Chief Academic Officer Cliff Jones during the February meeting of the Fulton County Board of Education. The federally-mandated Georgia Milestones assessments were waived in spring 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, assessments returned, but testing was optional and scores could only help – not hurt – a student’s final grade. This year, the Georgia Department of Education is again requesting some flexibility from the U.S. Department of Education for the Milestones assessments. A spokeswoman for the GDOE said the state was allowed to cancel Georgia Milestones in 2020 and make
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