by Ty Tagami | May 27, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – More students have been skipping school since the COVID-19 pandemic, and Georgia lawmakers are looking into the problem.
A leading state Senate Republican announced Tuesday that he is forming a committee on the issue. Sen. John F. Kennedy, R-Macon, will also chair the new Study Committee on Combating Chronic Absenteeism in Schools.
Kennedy, the Senate’s president pro tempore, credited the chamber’s leader, Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, with prioritizing the issue.
“Thanks to his support, this new study committee will help us dig deeper into the root causes of absenteeism,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy was the chief co-sponsor of Senate Bill 123, which Gov. Brian Kemp signed last month. It amends Georgia’s compulsory attendance law for students ages 6 through 15, with chronic absenteeism defined as missing 10% or more of the school year. That law already requires superior court judges to establish and oversee student attendance and school climate committees in each county.
When it takes effect in July, SB 123 will require attendance review teams in each school system where 10% or more of the students were chronically absent and in each school where at least 15% were chronically absent.
SB 123 also adds a requirement that the Georgia Department of Education publish biannual reports on compliance with the law and on attendance rates.
The education department already publishes attendance rates, and the percentage of students missing school has climbed sharply since before the pandemic, when 12% of students qualified as chronically absent.
The rate fell briefly to 8% in 2020, when Kemp ordered schools to close their doors.
But chronic absenteeism surged to 20.1% in 2021, when schools adapted to the pandemic, with some operating online while others returned in person.
The percentage of chronically absent students climbed to 23.9% in 2022 before settling to 21.3% last year.
That means more than 370,000 Georgia students missed at least 10% of the 2024 school year.
Rates varied by district though, from 43.0% chronically absent in Crisp County to 5.1% in Wilkinson County.
by Ty Tagami | May 23, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers quietly rolled back half the closures of recreational areas it had announced around Lake Lanier this week after public pushback from Georgia’s congressional delegation.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, drew attention to the closures when he issued a statement Wednesday saying he was disappointed to learn about them ahead of the busy Memorial Day weekend, noting the lake draws more than 10 million visitors a year.
Meanwhile, Georgia’s two Democratic U.S. senators were blaming the administration of President Donald Trump, with Sen. Raphael Warnock attributing the closures to “reckless cuts,” and Sen. Jon Ossoff calling them “a direct and predictable result” of “reckless and chaotic mismanagement.”
The Army Corps triggered the barrage with an announcement Wednesday that it was temporarily shuttering parks and public use facilities at waterways in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, blaming “staffing shortages.”
The announcement included 20 sites at Lake Lanier, two at Allatoona Lake, one along Lake George W. Andrews southwest of Blakely, and a public shoreline area along the 240-mile Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River system.
On Thursday, the agency seemed to reverse course with another announcement that listed only 10 closures at Lake Lanier, or 11 depending upon how one counts the facilities. (The Thursday announcement listed as separate facilities two sites that would remain: Van Pugh North and Van Pugh South. The Wednesday announcement had listed them as one site.)
Warnock took some credit for the reversal, issuing a statement that said the Army Corps had scaled back the closures “following pressure” from him and Georgia families.
His office also took issue with McCormick’s suggestion that Democrats were partially responsible for the closures, even though Republicans control the federal government.
McCormick had said Democrats blocked an appropriations bill in the House of Representatives last year that would have prevented campground closures around Lake Lanier. Warnock’s office then noted that Republicans also controlled the House last year.
On Wednesday, McCormick said he was working with the Army Corps to find a solution before Memorial Day. On Friday, he merely shared the Army Corps’ update on X, without further comment.
by Ty Tagami | May 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – Groups that promote access to abortion and medical services for Black women said Thursday that uncertainty about Georgia’s abortion restrictions were to blame for the decision to keep a brain dead, pregnant woman on life support.
Georgia’s so-called “heartbeat” law bans abortion once cardiac activity is detected in a fetus, typically six weeks into pregnancy.
There are exceptions for rape, incest and risk to the mother’s life, but the law, established by Gov. Brian Kemp’s signature on House Bill 481 in 2019, is silent about the situation that befell the family of Adriana Smith, who was reportedly placed on life support while pregnant after being declared brain dead.
“Just because HB 481 doesn’t explicitly mandate these devastating outcomes does not mean that anti-abortion politicians can wash their hands of responsibility,” said Aleo Pugh, who manages communications in Georgia for Unite for Reproductive & Gender Equity.
“Abortion bans like HB 481 don’t just outlaw care, they intentionally create fear and confusion in moments when urgency and clarity are needed. Providers are made to second guess what care is legal,” added Pugh, who was among several advocates who were critical of Georgia’s law during a news conference Thursday.
HB 481 drew bitter resistance from Democrats as Republican lawmakers pushed it through the General Assembly. On Tuesday, state Sen. Nabilah Islam Parkes, D-Duluth, sent Kemp a letter urging him to seek a legal opinion from Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr on what she called “the dangerously vague provisions” of the heartbeat law.
“Physicians and hospital administrators across Georgia are watching this developing situation closely, wary of being arrested for violating our abortion law if they provide medical care to mothers, or for violating its ‘fetal personhood’ provision if they make a reasonable medical judgment,” she wrote.
The senator’s letter said she wrote Carr last Friday seeking a legal opinion but hadn’t heard back. She noted that a statement his spokesperson gave to news outlets saying the law doesn’t require life support for a brain-dead pregnant woman “does not establish or interpret policy and does not carry the force of law.”
Kemp’s office on Thursday declined to comment about the law, referring to Carr’s statement.
WXIA-TV reported last week about Smith’s situation, quoting her mother as saying the medical decisions about her daughter should have been left to the family.
by Ty Tagami | May 22, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – As communities continue to recover from last year’s Hurricane Helene, federal forecasters are predicting another vigorous storm season this year.
The National Weather Service is expecting an above-average number of hurricanes, giving 60% odds of above-normal activity in the Atlantic Ocean, 30% for near-normal and 10% for below-normal.
“Warm sea surface temperatures (are) probably the number one contributor,” Ken Graham, the National Weather Service director, said Thursday during a news briefing streamed from Louisiana.
The agency is forecasting 13 to 19 named storms (carrying minimum winds of 39 miles per hour) versus an average year of 14, and six to 10 hurricanes (with winds of at least 74 mph) versus the average seven.
Graham said the agency expects three to five major hurricanes, defined as Category 3 or above with sustained winds of at least 111 mph. The average is three major hurricanes.
He said forecasters can’t predict which regions would be affected.
Hurricanes aren’t the only threat. Graham said the warming atmosphere can hold more moisture.
“We’re seeing heavier rainfall rates,” he said. “Inland, coastal, the rainfall’s heavy year-round. We’re seeing some of these floods and we’re hearing from more and more communities” about unusual amounts of rain.
Graham said the risk is exacerbated by an influx of residents to coastal areas.
“There’s a lot more people in harm’s way,” he said.
Graham said the weather service is well prepared despite reports about deep cuts to his agency by the administration of President Donald Trump.
“We had some folks go, but we’re going to make sure that we have everything that we have on the front lines,” he said.
by Ty Tagami | May 21, 2025 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A federal staffing shortage has resulted in the closure of Georgia lakeside recreational areas just ahead of the busy Memorial Day weekend.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ announcement Wednesday that it would close 31 parks and public use facilities around waterways in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi is already drawing political heat.
U.S. Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Suwanee, issued a statement saying he was disappointed to learn of the closures of beaches and docks around Lake Lanier, noting the lake draws more than 10 million visitors a year. And Georgia’s two U.S. senators, Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both of them Democratics, blamed President Donald Trump.
The Army Corps announcement listed 20 sites at Lake Lanier, two at Allatoona Lake, and one along Lake George W. Andrews southwest of Blakely. The announcement also included a public shoreline area along the 240-mile Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River system, which runs through Georgia.
Some sites in Alabama are near Georgia and those closures may also affect Georgia residents.
The Army Corps gave no reason for the closures, but the agency was targeted for cuts by the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that Trump established under billionaire businessman Elon Musk.
McCormick blamed Democrats in the House of Representatives, saying they blocked an appropriations bill introduced last year that would have prevented campground closures around Lake Lanier.
Warnock attributed the closures to “this administration’s reckless cuts,” and Ossoff said the Lake Lanier closures were “a direct and predictable result” of what he called the Trump administration’s “reckless and chaotic mismanagement.”
