Atlanta school superintendent Meria Carstarphen called Thursday for the city to unite behind her emerging plans to improve Atlanta Public Schools ahead of potential state takeover — plans likely to bring major disruptions to some of the city’s worst schools.
“We won’t have the time to fight,” Carstarphen said at a State of the District speech Thursday.
More than 40 Atlanta schools are at high risk of state takeover if Gov. Nathan Deal’s Opportunity School District plan, which would allow the state to take control of low-performing schools, is approved by voters next year. It’s unlikely that more than a few schools statewide would be selected initially, though.
In the coming year, Carstarphen’s administration will focus on turning around elementary schools in the Douglass and Carver clusters. Those schools are considered the lowest-performing based on their state report-card scores and other measures, she said.
That could mean bringing in a charter school group to operate schools or replacing school principals and teachers, Carstarphen said.
“I know this is going to be hard on people,” she said. But “I’m convinced that the state of the district for Atlanta Public Schools requires that we consider options like this.”
Schools in other neighborhoods — even other schools at high risk of state takeover — will not get the same treatment initially as the targeted Douglass and Carver schools.
Carstarphen gave her address in Howard High School in the Old Fourth Ward. She has proposed turning Howard, which has been closed since 1976, into Atlanta’s newest middle school for students feeding into Grady High School.
Before Carstarphen’s address, left-leaning group Rise Up Georgia held a press conference calling on APS to to cancel its contract with the architect of Gov. Deal’s state takeover plan.
Atlanta hired former Deal advisor Erin Hames in August on a $96,000, no-bid contract to work with the district as it tries to turn around the schools at risk of state takeover. Hames will also make $30,000 over the next year consulting for Deal on education policy.
The dual contracts have raised concerns of government transparency advocates.
State Sen. Vincent Fort said Thursday the contract was “undermining the public’s trust in Atlanta Public Schools” and that he plans to introduce a bill to prevent similar arrangements.
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