Cherokee Charter Academy was finally set to open this fall after nearly three years of work by parents and two denials by the local school board.
Monday, the school was denied again, this time by Georgia’s Supreme Court. Cherokee Charter and 15 Georgia charters schools like it were approved by a process that is unconstitutional, the state’s highest court said in a 4-3 ruling.
It means Cherokee County parents who gathered Saturday for a chance to fill one of the school’s 995 seats are left scrambling to make alternate plans for their children if the school is unable to open. The parents of 15,000 Georgia students, who either enrolled in or registered for the schools affected, face similar uncertainty.
“I am very disappointed,” said Danny Dukes of Cherokee County, who serves on the Georgia Charter Education Foundation and had worked with others to get Cherokee Charter Academy off the ground. “It is disheartening to have no school choice.”
The high court ruled local school boards have the sole authority to fund and open public charter schools. Georgia has 170 charter schools — with 65,000 students enrolled — that are mostly unaffected by the ruling because they opened with local school board approval.
Cherokee Charter is among 16 charter schools not approved by local school boards. Instead, they were approved by the state-appointed Georgia Charter Schools Commission.
“All along, we contended that this legislative attempt was unconstitutional,” said Lewis Holloway, superintendent of Bulloch County Schools, which joined Gwinnett County Public Schools and others in filing the case to protect their right to establish local schools. “I regret that we lost this money and cannot get it back. We had to operate with seven teachers less because of the money [the charter schools] were taking. That affects our student-teacher ratio.”
At stake is nearly $8 million in local funding that public schools lost and the state-approved charter schools gained when those students chose to attend these charters. Eight of the 16 schools have opened their doors.
For Manny and Mylah Osifo the ruling is affecting a school choice they say is essential to providing quality education. The Osifos have a rising sixth-grader headed to Ivy Preparatory Academy in Gwinnett County, another of the charter schools affected by this ruling.
“I think education, like every other thing, should be about freedom of choice,” said Manny Osifo, a Duluth social media consultant who still intends to send his daughter Alexis to Ivy Prep. “The public schools should step up their game. They shouldn’t have a monopoly over education.”
Michael Bowers, former Georgia attorney general who represented Gwinnett schools, says the issue is about the charter school approval process.
“What is important about this opinion is that local control means local control,” said Bowers. He said the ruling will ensure that lawmakers abide by the state constitution.
The ruling reverberated across Georgia, causing concern among commission charter school administrators, parents and proponents of choice.
Natilee Brown-Van, leader of Atlanta’s Heritage Preparatory Academy, a charter school approved by the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, held a registration drive Saturday and paid for radio advertisements to promote open enrollment. She intends to open in August even if she has to appeal to the state Board of Education for consideration with other schools in her situation. Her school was twice rejected by Atlanta Public Schools.
“I feel disheartened,” said Brown-Van, whose phone rang all day Monday with calls from worried staff and parents. “I felt like we had a really good program and the commission felt the same way. We did our budget with the possibility that we may get half-funding. We would still be able to operate, but it’s going to be a great sacrifice.
Georgia Schools Superintendent John Barge has stepped in offering state help to campuses potentially disbanded by the Supreme Court ruling. The charter schools could apply for status as state-chartered special schools and keep their doors open. The deadline to open schools in August under that designation has passed, but the state could rush through applications if the state Board of Education agreed to it.
“The state stands ready to help in whatever way necessary to ensure that the education of the students in these schools is not compromised,” Barge said
Commission charter schools are fully funded like other public schools with federal, state and a matching share of local education dollars carved from the state allocations of the districts students leave. It’s not clear how the ruling would affect the funding of the 16 schools. For some, the loss of local funding may not leave them with enough money to open the doors and offer the programs they intended.
Bruce Brown, attorney for the commission charter schools, said the commission may ask the high court for a rare reconsideration in the case. “We will be in the next few days considering that option carefully.”
Legislators also may step in. “I expect the Legislature and voters to amend the constitution so that it reflects citizen desire for public school innovation and improvement,” said House Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, R-Milton, who co-authored the bill creating the state’s charter commission.
Georgia’s charter school law, which allows the state to give rejected charter petitions a second look, has been viewed as among the country’s most progressive. It helped Georgia to win $400 million in federal Race to the Top grant funds promoting innovation in education.
Brown-Van’s school seemed to fit the bill, partnering with Emory University to serve low-income students and hold longer school days to assist students who must overcome additional challenges to achieve.
“Where we are, juvenile delinquency is so high,” Brown-Van said. “We wanted to keep our kids out of the streets during the time that our parents are working.”
Staff writers Bill Rankin and Chris Quinn contributed
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