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Gwinnett Daily Post THURSDAY, AUGUST 4, 2016
www.gwinnettdailypost.com
75 cents ©2016 SCNI
Vol. 46, No. 186
Injured student making progress BY JOSHUA SHARPE joshua.sharpe@gwinnettdailypost.com
The Georgia Department of Transportation and the State Road and Tollway Authority broke ground on the expansion of express lanes on Interstate 85 in the Buford area Wednesday. The lanes are expected to take two years to build. (Staff Photos: Curt Yeomans)
10 MORE MILES DOT officials kick off I-85 express lane expansion
BY CURT YEOMANS
curt.yeomans @gwinnettdailypost.com
Agnes Kim’s eyes are open. In this, her supporters can claim a small but encouraging development. The 21-year-old Snellville resident’s eyes shut on the night of April 27 on a lonely Oconee County road as she suffered a brain injury in a horrific car crash that killed four of her friends, fellow University of Georgia students. Kim is recovering at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. Lee Mason, Kim’s pastor at Classic City Church, visited her last week. Not a lot has changed since the Agnes last major development — Kim when friends announced she’d awoken from a coma June 1 — but the pastor saw some progress. “Her eyes are open and she’s making gradual progress — very slight and incremental,” Mason said in an email to the Daily Post. “The doctors are very encouraged though.” When Kim emerged from the coma, friends explained that it didn’t mean she
See STUDENT, Page 7A
In two years, Gwinnett County drivers can expect to have new lanes to use on Interstate 85 in the northern part of the county — but they’ll have to pay to drive in them. State and local officials gathered in the sweltering summer heat Wednesday and broke ground on the expansion of toll lanes, officially known as express lanes, on the interstate in Gwinnett County. The expansion will extend existing express lanes from where they currently end, at Old Peachtree Road, to Hamilton Mill Road. “The addition of 10 miles of newly built capacity … connected to the existing 16 miles farther south will provide motorists with 26 miles of express lanes that they can choose to use on a daily basis for their mobility in and around this region,” Georgia Department of Transportation Deputy Commission Mike Dover said. Construction on the $178 million expansion is expected to wrap up in the summer of 2018, according to Georgia DOT officials. It’s different from the original stretch of toll lanes on the interstate in that brand new lanes are being built to be used as toll lanes, rather than converting existing lanes as was done
Man sought in robbery, sex assault of 2 women BY ERIKA WELLS erika.wells@gwinnettdailypost.com
will also be resurfaced. Officials also plan to add 4.6 miles of auxiliary lanes. This is one of several express lane construction projects that the state has underway across metro Atlanta. The other projects are on Interstate 75. One of those is in the south metro area in Henry County. The other is on the northwest side
Gwinnett Police need help finding a Tucker man accused of sexually assaulting and robbing two women, ages 74 and 58, in separate home invasions in July, authorities said Wednesday. The first assault happened at a home on Stoneybrook Drive off South Norcross Tucker Road on July 21. The Curtis Earsell 74-year-old victim watched Curtis Earsell Dance Dance, 23, enter through her kitchen window, according to a police report. Dance allegedly pushed the victim twice and dragged her by her arm through the home while demanding money.
See EXPRESS, Page 7A
See ASSAULT, Page 7A
A construction vehicle moves dirt in the median on Interstate 85 near Buford on Wednesday. State officials are planning to expand the I-85 express lanes into this area over the next two years with new lanes that will be built in the median.
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before. The original express lanes opened in 2011 and State Road and Tollway Authority Executive Director Chris Tomlinson said they have been used heavily since then. “With the current I-85 express lanes, we are currently
averaging over 25,000 trips per day,” he said. “To put that into context, when we first opened them, we were averaging about 7,500 trips per day. There’s been a phenomenal amount of growth in the usage per day.” As for the specifics of the project, Georgia DOT District 1 Engineer Brent Cook said one lane will be added for each direction, while the existing lanes lanes on I-85 in that area
GCPS expands dual language program to six schools BY KEITH FARNER
keith.farner @gwinnettdailypost.com
Dual language immersion programs, which were first introduced in Gwinnett two years ago, are growing and now in six schools across the county. The third year of DLI programs will include Camp Creek, Ivy Creek and Baldwin elementary schools along with existing programs at Annistown, Bethesda and Trip
elementary schools. All of the schools offer Spanish except for Trip, which offers French. In the DLI programs, students, beginning in kindergarten, learn half of each day in English, and half of each day in the foreign language. The students spend part of the day with one teacher learning math, science and literacy (specific to the foreign language) using the new language. When they switch teachers, they
receive language arts and social studies instruction in English. The program adds a grade each year and eventually will serve students through fifth grade by 2019. At each grade level in the program, a team of two teachers — one fluent in the target language — work together with the students. For more than 80 percent of the student population at Baldwin, which is a new school in Norcross,
English is not their native language, or the language spoken at home. Baldwin Principal Brenda Johnson said the program means more to the native Spanish speakers because they can learn academics in a familiar language. “Especially for our parents,” she said, “to let them know to build that parent Baldwin Elementary School in Norcross, whose school capacity so they are also year begins Monday, will offer a dual language immerbuilding their engagement, sion program in Spanish. Baldwin is one of six schools across Gwinnett County to offer dual language immer-
See LANGUAGE, Page 7A sion programs. (Staff Photo: Keith Farner)
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