Education

In a first-it-failed-but-then-it-passed vote that occurred after one board member’s comments persuaded another to change her vote, the Shelby County Board of Education voted to raise the real estate and personal property by 2.6 percent.

After about a dozen people spoke at Thursday’s meeting – all but one against the increase – the board voted down the 1.8-cent increase, 3-2. Brenda Jackson, Allen Phillips and chair Eddie Mathis voted against, and Doug Butler and Sam Hinkle voted in favor.

The property tax rate will be the primary subject during Thursday’s Shelby County Board of Education meeting.

During its meeting earlier this month, Superintendent James Neihof presented the board with several key concepts that he said he would like to fund or keep funding, all of which would require new revenue streams for the district.

Now, when the board convenes tomorrow night at 7 at Collins High School, members will decide which programs, if any, for which they would like to find funding and if that funding will come from a tax increase.

The Shelby County Board of Education will takes its annual look at the board’s tax rate at its meeting Aug. 23, which will be held at Collins High School at 7 p.m., but before board members do that Superintendent James Neihof wanted to give them something to think about.

Shelby County Public Schools had another clean opening day on Wednesday, welcoming both new and returning students.

A few traffic issues, largely because of long car-rider lines at elementary schools, slowed down the procession of students, but issues were few and far between. There were a lot of tears and smiles from new kindergartners and their parents, but the district was largely incident free.

New kindergartner Zoie Bradley, who showed up for her first day at Wright Elementary, was smiling broadly but wouldn’t quite commit to being excited.