Charter school sets course for the future

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By D. Aileen Dodd

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Kay Madati is on a tight deadline.

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Johnny Crawford, jcrawford@ajc.com Kay Madati is board chairman for Atlanta Heights Charter School.

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In about seven months, he intends to open a new charter school from scratch, recruit students, build a campus, find energetic teachers and secure the financing to pay for it all.

The Atlanta Heights Charter School, backed by a national brand in the education entrepreneur industry, is poised to make a multi-million dollar investment in educating Atlanta Public Schools students with no guarantee that its charter authorizer will withstand a court challenge.

On Tuesday, Madati will join the heads of six other new commission charter campuses racing against the school calendar and an uncertain future to apply for seed money to get their doors open. The Georgia Charter Schools Commission, which is facing two lawsuits challenging its authority to approve and fund new schools, has $5.5 million in federal grant money to share. And until a Fulton County Superior Court judge tells them otherwise, the commission is conducting business as usual.

It has instructed its new class of charter schools to do the same. The commission’s 1 p.m. public meeting will teach new recruits how to apply for the implementation grants.

“We are going into it with our eyes wide open,” said Madati, Atlanta Heights Charter School’s board chairman, who opened a similar campus in New York nearly a decade ago.

“The law as it stands today says that we can open a school. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t come without its risks. We are victims to whims that we have no control over. There are so many different ways that it can play out.”

The lawsuits pending against the commission call it and its charter schools “illegal.” One asks a judge to stop the commission in its tracks until the legal battle is decided.

Fulton Superior Court Judge Wendy L. Shoob has been assigned to the case, which was originally filed by Gwinnett County schools and later joined by DeKalb and Atlanta school districts. A second lawsuit filed by Bulloch and Candler county schools that seeks an injunction may be merged with the original action. Lawyers held a status conference last week. The case is in the early evidence discovery and deposition stage.

“We have a very solid lawsuit ... that will probably move fairly quickly,” said former state Attorney General Michael Bowers, who is representing Gwinnett schools. “We believe based on the state constitution, that the state charter school commission is unconstitutional. The commission creates schools, in effect creating additional school systems contrary to the constitution. They are not under an elected board of education. The constitution does not provide for charter schools.”

The state Attorney General’s Office is mounting its defense of the commission, the state Department of Education and the two commission charter schools named in the case.

In court documents responding to Gwinnett’s claims, the state argues that the commission is not an independent school system and that it has the authority to open “special schools” under the Georgia Constitution. The state also defended the funding of commission charter schools, which receive state and federal dollars plus a controversial matching share of local funds carved from the state allocations of the districts its new charter school students leave behind.

Meanwhile, the new charter commission schools are moving forward with their plans. Fulton Leadership Academy is in the process of signing a lease to use classrooms on the campus of a church in unincorporated Fulton County. Until per-pupil funding kicks in, a few of its supporters are willing to make a personal investment.

“There are some people, including myself, that have offered bridge support,” said multi-million dollar commercial real estate developer Kent Gregory, board chairman of Fulton Leadership Academy.

Madati and his Atlanta Heights board hired National Heritage Academies, an education management company with schools in six states, to share in the responsibilities of opening a new school. NHA will stand in the startup funding gap, hire staff and build the school, which will cost between $5 million to $10 million for the land and campus, said its president and CEO Jeff Clark.

Madati, vice president of audience experience at CNN Worldwide, partnered with National Heritage on a similar project when he opened the high-performing Brooklyn Excelsior Charter School in 2001.

“Kay moved to Georgia ... we had some discussion about his interest in wanting to replicate another school,” Clark said. “We bring resources ... and a track record of academic success. We are excited about the opportunities in Georgia and are hopeful that the lawsuit will be resolved quickly and favorably.”