The board of directors of the new Chattahoochee Hills Charter School (CHCS) announced this week that New Orleans educator Duke J. Bradley, III has been hired as the school’s principal. The regional charter school will open its doors for the first time in August and will serve three cities in south Fulton County Fulton and the unincorporatd areas of Fulton, Coweta, Fayette, Douglas and Carroll counties.
Bradley will come to Chatt Hills from the Benjamin E. Mays Preparatory School in New Orleans where he is founder and executive director. During his time there Bradley launched one of Louisiana’s first open-enrollment transformation charter schools and received national media attention for its success. The school was recommended for approval by the National Council of Charter School Authorizers (NACSA) with final approval rendered by the Louisiana State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in Fall, 2008, according to CHCS spokesperson Tucker Berta.
A Columbus, Georgia native, Bradley has more than 10 years experience in education, having begun his career as a high school English teacher with the DeKalb County School System. Following a stint with the Georgia Department of Technical and Adult Education, Bradley spent four years with the education reform initiatives underway in New Orleans. While there, he served as Resident Principal of Joseph A. Craig School in partial fulfillment of his fellowship with the New Leaders for New School’s Principal Training Program. Bradley subsequently founded and led the Benjamin E. Mays Preparatory School.
Bradley received a bachelor’s degree in English from Morehouse College and later completed his graduate studies at Brown University. He is a 2003 graduate of the John Marshall Law School, is a former President of the school’s Black Law Students Association and Moot Court Honor Board Member. Bradley is currently nearing the end of his doctoral studies.
The Georgia State Charter Commission in December approved the CHCS application. The school will open in August and will be located at Atlanta-Newnan Road and Selbourne Way in the city of Chattahoochee Hills. The school will serve a five county attendance zone area that includes the cities of Chattahoochee Hills, Palmetto, Fairburn and unincorporated portions of Fulton, Fayette, Carroll, Douglas and Coweta counties.
The mission of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School (CHCS) is to “inspire all our children to the highest levels of academic achievement through a rigorous curriculum that integrates the wonders of the natural world. Our goal is for our students to cultivate the capacity to achieve a meaningful, healthy, flourishing life that embodies responsibility, stewardship, and experiential engagement with the arts, agriculture, and the environment in informed, imaginative, and rigorous ways.”
