The new Cherokee Charter Academy will hold a lottery in mid-May to determine which of the 2,400 applicants will fill the school's 710 available slots.
Lyn Carden, a Georgia Charter Education Foundation member and organizer of the academy, said the school plans to open in the foreclosed-upon 13-acre campus of American Heritage Academy on Sixes Road. And she is moving forward despite the looming court case which could stop the school's opening.
Seven Georgia school districts sued to stop the state Charter Schools Commission from approving charter schools that local school districts have not approved, which is the case in Cherokee. The issue before the Georgia Supreme Court is whether the Legislature overreached when it established a state-level charter school authority with the power to overrule local objections to a charter application.
"We have student applications and a building. We are optimistic," Carden said.
Sandy Castro, a spokeswoman for Charter Schools USA, the private company that will help run the school, said they are looking for a location large enough to hold the crowd of parents and children they expect to come to the lottery.
"This is so new to Georgia and the numbers are so big, we want to accommodate as many as we can," she said.
Getting three times the number of applications as there are spots available demonstrates the pent-up demand for local alternative public schools, members of the local governing council of the charter school said.
"It demonstrates there was clearly demand," said Chris Freeman, whose first child will enter first grade this fall.
"I am extremely encouraged that level of interest is there. I think it’s a great thing," he said.
Students will wear uniforms and the school will focus on some specialties such as character education.
Freeman said it will give Cherokee County public schools, which is a respected system, one more option for parents.
Council members who have worked to establish the school will have guaranteed slots for their children.
Because no students have yet been selected for the charter school, the county school system has not determined the effect on other schools' attendance.
Superintendent Frank Petruzielo said through a spokeswoman that he would not characterize the transfer of students as a drain on local attendance.
"But it will have a budgetary effect of some capacity and we are preparing for that impact as much as possible ... mainly in regard to the hiring of teachers. Local funding per student could be affected by a ruling by the Georgia Supreme Court, if and when that occurs," he said.
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