Ten days later than expected, Utopian Academy for the Arts in Riverdale finally opened it doors to students Thursday.
School officials took their case to court this week, where a judge ordered city officials to do the necessary inspections to allow the students to begin their school year. Inspections were delayed, in part, because of a dispute over whether the school had a valid lease on the building it occupies.
Wednesday, officials of the charter school scrambled to fix a few hundred dollars worth of problems uncovered in inspections done by Riverdale city officials.
The installation of emergency lights and exit signs seemed like small potatoes compared to the last week that took school officials, staff and families on a confusing, circuitous route to the academy’s opening. About a dozen families bailed because of the delay,but the school also picked up new students, school officials said.
“I’m floored with emotion that everything we’ve worked for for the past three years is finally paying off,”the school’s executive director Artesius Miller said by phone as he pulled up to the school Thursday morning. “The students of Utopian Academy can finally come home.”
While the school opens, several key issues linger, namely a dispute over the lease on the building, which is owned by the Clayton County Board of Education. The school board had initially leased the facility for $1 a year to the Downtown Development Authority, the economic development arm of Riverdale. The DDA turned the lease over to the Southern Crescent Centre for Innovation, a nonprofit run by the DDA’s former executive director Michael Syphoe. Southern Crescent, in turn, leased part of the building to Utopian for nearly $10,000 a month.
The school board is awaiting word from the DDA on whether it will end its lease with the board.
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