Across Georgia

School's holiday meal leaves 1 bag of trash

ATLANTA --- Imagine cooking a Thanksgiving meal for 1,000 people and producing just one small bag of trash.

Impossible, right? Not for the students, parents and teachers at Atlanta's Paideia School.

The private school's third annual "Zero Waste Thanksgiving" feast Thursday was the closest the students have ever come to their goal of sending nothing to the landfill. This year the only trash was a zipper-top bag containing latex gloves used by food servers and little decorative plastic turkeys someone stuck on top of the cupcakes.

Last year, the group produced seven bags of trash and the year before that it was 100 bags.

The secret this year was finding plates, cups, utensils and garbage bags made from sugar cane and corn, which can be composted. Everything else was recycled.

They hauled 50 bags of composting to a food-waste composting operation in Barnesville.

School district seeks state rule exemptions

LAWRENCEVILLE --- The Gwinnett County school system is asking the state to release it from certain mandates so it can implement a plan designed to improve student performance.

The county school board's plan includes flexible teacher pay, increasing class sizes and using aides as stand-ins for teachers.

School administrators have submitted a 104-page draft proposal to the state as a step toward entering into a contract promising academic improvement in five years.

If it failed to meet performance objectives the district would incur penalties.

Gwinnett is the first district in Georgia to apply for this authority under the state's Investing in Educational Excellence legislation, which allows school systems to opt out of some rules in exchange for greater accountability for student achievement.