Atlanta Public Schools officials won’t identify the charter school operators and other groups who have applied to manage some of Atlanta’s worst schools.
The school district received 27 responses to its call for groups to come in and improve schools at risk of falling under state control if voters approve Gov. Nathan Deal's Opportunity School District plan this fall, district spokeswoman Jill Strickland said Tuesday.
That’s significantly more than district officials had thought would be interested.
But the school district refused to release any of those applications in response to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution Open Records Act request, citing a state law that permits the records to be kept private until after the school board votes on the matter.
That vote is scheduled for March.
The district is using the same procurement process for the school management posting that it has followed since 2008, Strickland said. All responses to the district’s call for outside groups to manage schools will be made public after the board vote, she said.
Releasing information on applicants could unfairly influence the hiring process, Superintendent Meria Carstarphen said.
“We’re going to follow that process so we are fair to the people who are interested in doing that kind of work,” she said. “That’s not any different to how we treat people who are putting bids on chicken nuggets.”
Carstarphen described the groups applying to manage local schools only as “a full mix of potential providers.”
But Carstarphen said she’s not looking for groups who want to start new charter schools that would replace existing schools.
To be considered “you have to take and work with a neighborhood school, a zip code that you don’t get to choose, children who are there simply because of their address. They don’t have to apply,” she said. “You don’t get to cherry pick or lemon drop.”
A constitutional amendment to authorize Deal's Opportunity School District plan goes before voters in November.
If it’s approved, the state would be able take over a limited number of Georgia’s lowest performing schools and close them, run them or convert them to charter schools.
The new state-run school district would be under an appointed superintendent so decisions about how students are taught and how local tax dollars are spent would no longer be solely up to locally elected officials.
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