2 Georgia districts sue over charter school money

By D. Aileen Dodd

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Two more Georgia school districts stepped forward Monday to sue the state for taking money away from their students.

A lawsuit is expected to be filed this week in Fulton County Superior Court on behalf of Bulloch County Schools and Candler County School District. The case will charge that the state is illegally sharing money meant for Bulloch and Candler with an outlaw charter school.

It will be the second such lawsuit this month challenging the constitutionality of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, the state’s newest authorizer of charter schools. The commission, which met Monday, provides its charter schools with a share of matching local funds carved from the home districts of the students it serves.

The Bulloch-Candler suit alleges that Statesboro’s Charter Conservatory for Liberal Arts & Technology, a middle and high school of 123 students, is operating under an invalid charter, according to a copy of the suit obtained by the Atlanta-Journal Constitution. Under the state’s funding formula, CCAT receives $367,464 from money meant for Bulloch Schools. Approximately $1,567 in state funds is being withheld from Candler County to pay for its sole student at the CCAT.

“It’s not run by our board ... it’s not controlled by our board as the state constitution says it shall be,” said Bulloch Schools Superintendent Lewis Holloway. “Over 10 years we are going to lose $ 4 million — that is a significant amount of money to not go to our students. The constitution says that you can’t spend local revenue on non-public school items without our voters voting on it.’’

The suit was sent to the court recently according to Holloway, who also said it names state Superintendent of Schools Kathy Cox; Ben Scafidi, chairman of Georgia’s Charter Schools Commission and its board members as defendants.

Scafidi said the latest lawsuit will not deter the commission from approving and funding charter schools as the law allows. “We are going to proceed until the court tells us otherwise,” Scafidi said after a commission meeting.

The commission met in executive session Monday to discuss the constitutional challenge by Gwinnett County Public Schools.

Unlike Gwinnett’s lawsuit, the Bulloch-Candler lawsuit moves to freeze the funds in an interest bearing account during litigation in case the court decides the money is rightfully theirs.