The Coweta Charter Academy will learn its fate by July 8. That was the word at the June 14 meeting of the Coweta County Board of Education when charter school representatives requested a quick answer to the recently submitted application to gain local school system approval to continue operations in August.
School board meetings are customarily held at the Jackson Street office. The June 14 meeting was moved to The Centre for Performing and Visual Arts on Lower Fayetteville Road to accommodate the large number of parents and students attending.
Though on the agenda, the charter school item was not intended to result in a vote by the board. Superintendent Steve Barker in introducing the agenda item noted that he had met with charter school representatives and had received the application requesting local approval for the school to continue operating after the decision by the Georgia Supreme Court last month that schools such as the Coweta Charter Academy at Senoia were unconstitutional.
The school’s Governing Council Chairman Chris DeLong was the only one of the more than 100 parents and children in attendance to address the school board.
“We submitted the application and we know a lot of work has to be done to come to an agreement,” DeLong told board members. “We’re willing to work with you on these items. We’ve had good test scores and I think we’ve proved that we’re a viable school for the community. We’re looking forward to meeting with the school system.”
DeLong requested that an agreement between the school system and the charter school be completed by July 8 in time to “make something happen and move forward or to have sufficient time to acclimate our children to your schools.”
Barker after DeLong’s comments said school system staff are currently going through the document, adding that the proposed July 8 timeline was “very reasonable.”
The entire agenda item took only a few minutes. Though he went to the podium with DeLong, school operator Charter Schools USA representative Richard Page did not address the board. Nor did any of the significant number of parents in the audience.
Those parents and their children had assembled outside The Centre prior to the board meeting for a “protest picnic” complete with signs denoting the desire to have the school continue operating in August. Their numbers easily 100 or more, they all made their way into the board meeting to hear the proceedings.
It was almost surprising, but not necessarily unexpected, that none addressed to board when the charter school agenda item was presented. They were quiet and respectful in their seats. But that calm was juxtaposed with another heavily felt sentiment that has been unmistakably evident in east Coweta County for more than two years. These people are serious about having a charter school in their community. And, regardless the decision by the board in July and given their continuing expectation, that viewpoint will likely not be obstructed.
The May 16 decision by the Supreme Court said essentially that local school boards have sole authority to open and fund public charter schools. The 4-3 ruling effectively neutralized the legislatively-enacted bill in 2008 that established the Georgia Charter Schools Commission and its subsequent move that approved a number of new public charter schools. One of those schools was in Senoia.
The lawsuit that made its way to the Supreme Court was initiated by a number of Georgia school districts that challenged the legitimacy of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission and its ability to provide charters for the start-up schools.
Affected school systems supported the Supreme Court decision while charter school advocates said the decision is a step backward for Georgia. Voicing their disagreement, Coweta parents and students joined others at a Capitol rally after the Supreme Court announcement to protest the decision.
The move by the Supreme Court was followed by a May 24 letter from the Georgia Dept. of Education Charter Schools Division Director Louis Erste described the process by which interested charter schools could apply for the state-chartered special school status.
Meantime, the Georgia Senate in mid-May announced the creation of the Education and Youth subcommittee, “Special Subcommittee on School Choice,” to address the Supreme Court decision.
The Coweta Charter Academy at Senoia began operations in August offering K-3 classes. The school was in process of constructing an additional classroom building to accommodate grades K-7 when the Supreme Court ruling was made.
The idea of the parents of the 180 K-3 students that attended the Coweta Charter Academy this year and the 600 that applied for slots in the K-7 grades beginning in August to have a more definitive say in their children’s education and to stand firm for school choice is not new. The first meetings were held in early 2009 when large numbers attended meetings in Senoia and Sharpsburg to learn more about the new options for school choice in education that was signed into law in 2008.
