Board of Education

Rome City School District

The Rome City School District Board of Education sets the overall direction and policies for the district's schools. It adopts the annual budget that goes before district voters, hires and oversees the superintendent who manages day-to-day operations, and approves major decisions ranging from curriculum to facilities. The board is accountable to local voters and taxpayers who trust the Board to oversee how the district educates its students and spends public money.

The Stories We Are Following:

Short on time? These are the three Board of Education threads that you need to know about in Rome Right Now.

Voters Rejected The School Budget, Then Approved A Slimmed-Down Version On A Second Vote.

The district built a $165.5 million budget for next year with a 2.89% tax increase. In May, voters turned it down, but only barely: 49% in favor, 51% against.

After the defeat, the board chose to revise the plan rather than gamble on the same one again. It trimmed $173,000 and lowered the tax increase to 2.5%, then put that version back on the ballot June 16. This time it passed. That means the district has a budget for next year and avoided the deeper cuts a second failure would have forced.

The bigger story is what comes next. A partly new board takes office July 1, and a five-year financial plan is due this fall. Even with this budget in place, the district has warned it can't avoid a deficit by 2027–28 unless it holds tax increases near 2.5% every year, so the squeeze that turned this year's budget into a two-vote fight isn't going away.

A Wave Of Staff Departures Has Turned Into A Fight Over Trust And Transparency.

Since spring, staff turnover has become the district's loudest controversy. At back-to-back meetings in April and May, parents and community members lined up to object most pointedly to the resignation of the Denti Elementary principal, but also to a broader pattern. One speaker said that, by her own count of public meeting minutes, at least 47 employees had resigned this school year.

The complaints are less about any single departure than about trust. Whether staff feel safe raising concerns, whether class sizes are creeping up, and why the district says so little when a leader leaves. Part of that silence is the law. Board members have pushed back, saying much of what spreads on social media isn't accurate and inviting residents to email them directly with questions.

Underneath it all is the superintendent's push for higher expectations and accountability. This is something some staff have welcomed and others have bristled at. A partly new board is sworn in July 1, so the thing to watch is whether the departures slow down next school year, and whether the district can rebuild trust with the families paying close attention.

The Rome City School District Board of Education Reorganizes July 16.

The Rome City School District Board of Education holds its annual reorganizational meeting at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 16, in the district office boardroom at 409 Bell Road. A regular meeting follows. The public may attend both.

Reorganization is the meeting that resets the board for the year ahead. It also adopts the meeting calendar and sets rates such as mileage reimbursement. The regular meeting that follows is where personnel resolutions are voted on. This includes things like hires, resignations, and appointments.

This is the meeting that names who handles your tax dollars for the coming year, like the treasurer, the auditors, and the district's banks. The most recent audit reported records and reconciliation problems in the business office, and these are the appointments that decide who does that work next. Agendas and recordings go online afterward, but the meeting itself is the only place to use the public comment period before the votes are taken.