Two hundred Atlanta students must scramble to find new schools after an announcement Friday that their charter school is closing.
Atlanta Tech High will shut down after an eight-year run, citing budget cuts by Atlanta Public Schools. Those cuts could cause hardship for other Atlanta charters, and may lead to lawsuits because of a controversy over pension debt.
The school system informed Tech High May 31 that it would be taking $360,000 out of its budget , said Kent Antley, chairman of the Tech High board. School officials tried and failed to plug the financial hole, before giving up Friday.
"It's a great school, and I'm sorry that this happened," Antley said.
He and fellow board member Kelly McCutchen said the cut was due largely to an APS decision to pay more into the teacher pension fund to cover past liabilities. That's unfair, they said, because Tech High teachers didn't create the problem.
APS spokesman Keith Bromery confirmed that pension liabilities caused some of the shortfall but said two-thirds of the cutback was due to an unexpected drop in property tax revenue. He noted that regular Atlanta schools are enduring the same cutbacks.
"We had to do what makes fiscal sense," Bromery said. He said APS has plenty of room to absorb the displaced students.
Louis Erste, charter school division director at the Georgia Department of Education, said Tech High and other charter schools were having to pay back a prior overpayment connected with the State Health Benefit Plan. "By no stretch of the imagination is this a 'cut,' " he said. Erste said Tech High gets more per pupil than it did five years ago and that it's real problem is a failure to grow.
But Tony Roberts, president and CEO of the Georgia Charter Schools Association, said charters across Atlanta are reeling from the pension-related budget issue. Others could close, and some might sue, he said.
"What's wrong about this is the charter schools having to pay and pay dearly for a problem they had nothing to do with," he said.
Tech High opened on Piedmont Road in 2004 with a focus on math, science and technology. The school on Memorial Drive in East Atlanta boasted a graduation rate of 93 percent despite a relatively high poverty rate. Officials established ties with Georgia Tech and had hoped an application for a federal Race to the Top grant was going to succeed within the next year. They couldn't hold on long enough, though. Teachers got word this week.
Amanda Colavito taught chemistry and physics at the school this past year, and filed for unemployment after hearing about the closing Monday.
"We were a family. The students were really close. It was a small school. I'm surprised that it's happening," Colavito said. "I feel bad that it's happening to those kids. It was a great opportunity for them to excel and be prosperous."
