Education
Education

Half of teachers absent at APS school up for charter management

By Molly Bloom
Feb 1, 2016

More than half of the teachers at Atlanta's Thomasville Heights Elementary School were absent Friday, the day after school superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced plans to bring in a charter school group to operate it next school year.

Under that plan, all teachers would have to re-apply for their jobs. Those not selected could apply for other vacancies in the district.

Seventeen of Thomasville’s 29 teachers were out Friday.

» MAP: Which Georgia schools got an "F" on the 2014 CCRPI?

Thomasville Heights in southeast Atlanta would be part of a set of dramatic changes Carstarphen proposed. Those changes are intended to improve some of the city's worst schools ahead of potential state takeover if Gov. Nathan Deal's Opportunity School District plan is approved by voters in November.

It would be one of five schools put under the management of charter-school groups under Carstarphen's proposal, which also calls for closing one school and merging four others.

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