Georgia Cyber Academy parent Renee Lord said she is breathing easier now that her charter school of choice has been approved by the state for another five years.
The Georgia Board of Education on Thursday unanimously approved a charter extension for Odyssey School/Georgia Cyber Academy as the first of 16 campuses whose operations were overturned by a recent state Supreme Court decision. It was all part of a back-up plan school and state leaders devised to help the partnering campuses provide uninterrupted service.
“This is a good immediate fix,” said Lord, who has two children at GCA.
Fourteen other schools are still awaiting answers. Together, the commission schools were to serve a projected 16,500 students next fall. Georgia's Supreme Court ruled last month that the school's charters were approved by a process that is unconstitutional, and that local districts have sole franchise authority over authorizing charter schools. That sent schools scrambling to local districts and the state to keep the doors open.
Odyssey/GCA, the state's largest charter school expecting to serve nearly 9,000 students this fall, had an application for renewal pending as a state charter special school for several months when they applied to the Georgia Charter Schools Commission for re-authorization and full funding for students. For years, they had been operating on only state and federal funding. Appealing to the commission gave them an opportunity to expand their program, add more teachers and separate their distinct personalities.
The commission had approved them as two separate campuses -- Odyssey School, which educates kids in a building, and Georgia Cyber Academy, which does it virtually. But under their renewed charter, they will continue to operate as one. Charter schools are public schools that have flexibility from the state over how they educate kids.
“We are glad for their support,” said GCA's head of school Matt Arkin of the state’s unanimous vote to extend their charter. The school's charter was extended as part of the consent agenda at Thursday's state board meeting without discussion.
Arkin said they will have less money now than if they were a commissioned school. "We will still operate as one school. We were laying the groundwork to separate on July 1.”
Both schools had assembled separate boards and will now work to combine them. Arkin said plans to hire art, music and foreign language teachers for its K-8 program have also been put on hold. It's 9th and 10th grade high school classes, however, will still offer "a full slate of courses," Arkin said.
As the state offered one school a safety net, several other campuses in a similar predicament still face uncertainty. A few, however, are working closely with local school districts to get approved in time to open in August when their students return.
The DeKalb County school board is scheduled to vote Monday to offer a one-year charter to The Museum School of Avondale Estates and Peachtree Hope Charter School so they can keep their doors open.
Cherokee Charter Academy will be considered by the Cherokee school board on June 30 at a special called meeting. Gwinnett Schools is still negotiating with Ivy Preparatory Academy for local approval. Coweta County Schools has begun talks with Coweta Charter Academy.
“There is certainly a time constraint here,” said Angela Palm, director of policy and legislative services for the Georgia School Boards Association. “Everyone is trying to do this as fast as they reasonably can so that the students can have some kind of assurances about where they are going to be in the fall. At the same time, the local boards have to be careful and do a thorough job of evaluating the petitions before them.”
Atlanta Public Schools officials are sticking to their opinion that it is too late in their cycle to rush through Atlanta Heights Charter School and Heritage Preparatory Academy because of the "deficiencies" found in their original charter applications. Both applied to the district and were rejected before going to the commission. Both recently asked APS for reconsideration.
“We don't experiment with kids," said Allen Mueller, APS' charter schools director. "There was no way that the schools were going to be able to address all of those issues in order to get to the state by Aug. 1."
Fulton County Schools is beginning to look at Fulton Leadership Academy's appeal for a local charter, but its formal renewal process doesn't open again until September. The school was originally denied a local charter because it is for boys.
“Being a single gender school we could not approve them, which is why they had to go to the state,” said Susan Hale, spokeswoman for Fulton Schools.
All commission schools who don't win local approval have applications in with the state as a back-up plan like Odyssey/GCA to be voted on as a state charter special school. A meeting will be in late June to consider the remaining schools.
Gavin Samms, head of school for Fulton Leadership Academy, is still concerned about the future. Next fall his school is expected to grow to more than 180 boys.
“We did by all measures pretty great things with a population of young men that many people around the country struggle to try to help succeed,” he said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. It seems our reward for doing well is you lose half of your budget.”
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