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Published Wednesday, July 01, 2009 in Local

Charter school not giving up

By Jeff Bishop

The Times-Herald

Charter Schools USA is not giving up on its application to establish a new charter school in Senoia, despite last week's "no" vote from the Coweta County Board of Education.

"Obviously we are frustrated and disappointed with the outcome of this vote," said Colleen Reynolds, spokesperson for Charter Schools USA.

"We are evaluating our options, and we will be submitting a petition to the statewide commission because the community has spoken loud and clear that they do want this school. So we will be working to provide that option," she said.

She said Charter Schools USA "anticipates having a town hall meeting in July" to present an update to interested citizens.

"We want to talk with our supporters and let them know what our next steps will be," she said.

"We have had tremendous support for this charter school, and we're not going to just let it die," said Reynolds. "We're going to keep working for them. We have heard from the community that they want this school, and we're going to do what we can to get it there for them."

She said the Coweta school board's decision to have a called meeting to decide the matter was a surprise, since they were preparing to make an official presentation at the board's next regular meeting in July.

School board members said when they turned down the petition last week that the board had "numerous concerns."

Superintendent Blake Bass said the proposed school would be out of compliance with the Charter Schools Act of 1998, which requires that charter schools "shall be issued only to non-profit corporations organized and operated under the laws of the state of Georgia."

Bass said the Georgia Charter Foundation, Inc. is a "foreign non-profit corporation" formed under the laws of the state of Florida.

Reynolds called this a "paperwork issue" that could have been "resolved fairly easily.

"In fact, we are in the process of resolving that right now," she said.

The petitioner also "has no prior experience in operating a school," Bass and the school board said in a prepared statement.

"The charter petitioner plans to place the sole responsibility of running the day-to-day operations of the school with Charter Schools USA, Inc., a Florida for-profit company," Bass said.

"However, the charter petitioner had advised the Coweta County School System that it has not yet entered into an agreement with Charter Schools USA for the operation of the school, and has further advised that the sample contract contained in the charter petition is not the exact contract that it plans on entering into with Charter Schools USA."

The school system cannot approve the application without knowing the "precise terms and conditions of the agreement" for the operation of the school, he said.

Reynolds said that Charter School USA has "been in this business quite a long time," and operates 20 schools. There was never any doubt that Charter School USA would be operating the schools on behalf of the Georgia Charter Foundation, she said.

"What would happen is that Charter Schools USA would be the management company, so it would manage the school day-to-day, but the Georgia Charter Foundation, they would make all the board policy decisions, as a non-profit organization," she said.

The school system also said it was concerned that the Foundation has not yet acquired the property on which the school would be constructed, and that there was "only one special education teacher budgeted in the petition."

Bass and the school board said that they were disappointed that the charter school petition wasn't more like the one submitted for what eventually became the Central Educational Center.

That petition has "become the model for charter academy petitions across Georgia, and has been promoted as a clear cutting-edge model across the nation," Bass said.

"As compared to the CEC petitions, which were driven by process that forced clear agreed agreements to precede the charter petition's filing, we find the CSUSA petition to be speculative and open-ended," he said.

Reynolds said to expect more information about the petition in the coming weeks.

"We are looking forward to a positive outcome at the end of a long process," she said.

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