Principal Vanessa Suarez gazed at the wall behind the reception desk of Cherokee County’s newest publicly funded elementary school and saw the name of the private school that used to operate there.
“People are coming in tomorrow to paint over that and put up the new name,” Suarez said Tuesday, smiling as she showed a reporter around the former American Heritage Academy, which will become Cherokee Charter Academy when school starts Aug. 15. It's the first charter school in the county and the object of a three-year battle.
“There’s a lot of work to do,” Suarez said.
Suarez, a former assistant principal at Woodstock High School, started work just 10 days earlier. For the past week she’s been interviewing applicants to fill about 20 administrative positions and 55 teacher slots. She plans to have those jobs filled by the middle of next week. Then the new staff will go through orientation before the first school bell rings.
Only a month ago -- when the Cherokee County Board of Education rejected the proposal to open Cherokee Charter Academy for the third time in three years -- the school looked like a lost cause. Then Gov. Nathan Deal stepped in and promised $10 million in state bridge funds to Cherokee Charter and six other charter schools across the state rejected by local boards, so they could open this year.
For two weeks, it's been a rush to get ready for the 995 kids coming. The students were selected by lottery from more than 2,600 applicants.
Opponents said the school is not needed and would siphon off funds from the county's neighborhood public schools. Proponents said it finally offered public school students and parents a choice and a chance to run a school that will involve parents heavily and be governed independent of the school system.
That fight is history, Suarez said. All that matters now is getting the school up and running, and that's no easy task, hiring 75 people in 10 days, then getting them ready to work as a team.
“It’s a big challenge since we have been given such a short time frame,” she said.
The furniture was inherited from the private school. Suarez, however, has hasn’t yet been given the key to her office and has been working out of a small conference room.
“I’m still learning my way around the building,” she said as she took a wrong turn looking for the auditorium where a meet-and-greet with parents, students and administrators was scheduled Thursday.
The school requires that parents commit to 20 hours a year of service in some capacity. Since bus service will not be provided to the school, parents have been organizing car pools that will transport students from all over the county.
Suarez has worked long hours, answering emails into the night, and is still interviewing job applicants, but she said it has not been frantic.
“I am very organized," she said. "I’d say I’ve just been very busy.”
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