On March 31, Clarke County School District was appointed as a charter district and will begin on July 1. This will allow CCSD to gain flexibility in teaching styles and techniques as well as localize the authority of each school. “‘(A) charter is a contract between district and SBOE,” gaboe.org said. “‘District gains flexibility to innovate in exchange for increased academic accountability…School level governance required.'” Cartoon by Ashley Lawrence.
By AMELIA DELAMATER – Print Managing Editor
Clarke County School District was approved as a charter school district on March 31, which will go into effect on July 1.
The Clarke County School District was approved as a charter school district unanimously on March 31 by the Georgia Department of Education, a new distinction that will go into effect on July 1, 2016.
A group of Athens community members including school volunteer, activist and local columnist Myra Blackmon, CCSD Superintendent Dr. Philip D. Lanoue, other district administrators, University of Georgia professor Sally Zepada and CCSD parent Dan DeLamater went to the Georgia Board of Education on Nov. 3, 2015 to represent CCSD and to support its push on becoming a charter school district.
The members spoke to and were interviewed by members of the State Department of Education on why the CCSD should become a charter school district.
The new CCSD charter agreement will have an impact on traditional schools, which are publically funded schools divided by grade levels. Schools like Clarke Central High School and Cedar Shoals High School serve as traditional high schools in the CCSD.
A charter school in Georgia “operates under the terms of a charter, or contract, with an authorizer, such as the state and local boards of education. Charter schools receive flexibility from certain state and local rules in exchange for a higher degree of accountability for raising student achievement.” This allows for different learning experiences and a stronger community school.
“We are not going to become a system of charter schools where everyone has their own free will, (and) they can do whatever they want,” CCSD parent Bertis Downs said. “The charter is the agreement or the compact between the district and the state, which says we will give certain flexibility, we will get certain waivers, we will get more money if we achieve results the way the district spells out in a very detailed charter application.”
The new agreement will have less of an effect on current CCSD charter schools, such as Foothills Education Charter High School and J.J. Harris Elementary Charter School, according to Foothills Executive Director Dr. Sherrie Gibney-Sherman. Charter schools are “overseen directly by the state Board of Education… children are grouped by ability, rather than age, for subjects,” according to mountainheightsacademy.org.
“It’s two separate entities,” Gibney-Sherman said. “The only way it could affect us (is) it could impact our work. If Clarke County decided to do something different in the high schools–we’re just an option for kids–they may do some of the things we’re doing.”
While the title of charter system will become official this summer, the new agreement will not go into full effect until the 2017-18 school year.
“For (students) with a year or two left, I don’t think (they will) see a lot of change. The changes that students will see will be at the school level because each school becomes what is known as a community school,” Blackmon said. “That community school is not managed, not run on a day-to-day basis, but governed by a Local School Governance Team.”
Appointed Local School Governance Teams, chaired by the school principal and consisting of various school community members such as teachers, parents, community members, business leaders and law enforcement, will be able to focus the educational offerings of schools while still meeting state standards, according to Blackmon.
“Those Local (School) Governance Teams can decide things like, ‘We want our school to have a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) curriculum.’ You’ll still take English, but there will be a focus…or arts curriculum or a leadership development curriculum,” Blackmon said. “They’ll still have to meet all the standards, but they can talk about how they want to meet those standards.”
One student, elected by peers, will also serve on each school’s LSGT board.
“It can give us a voice and help people know what we want,” freshman Kelsey Barnette said.
Starting July 1, the district will begin its process of training the LSGTs to properly fulfill the requirements of the charter school policy. CCSD District 4 Board of Education Representative Carl Parks asserts that progress is key to the charter agreement.
This is part of the slide show presentation “School System Flexibility in Georgia presented to the Georgia council of school board attorneys. Click on the image to view the full presentation.
“As part of being a charter district, on an annual basis, we have to show that we’re making improvements in certain areas,” Parks said. “It’s nothing overly dramatic, but it’s making progress in key areas.”
The changes in the CCSD will depend on each school, its LSGT board and the route they decide to take for that school.
“There will be change over the short term and the long term. It’s going to be a process,” Parks said. “We’re all going to have to learn and if something doesn’t work exactly the way we want it to in the first year, then that’s why we have Local School Governance Teams and the Board and all that will work together.”
The charter school agreement will also enable each school to focus on community aspects.
“(Schools) were the institutions that anchored the community (when the United States was first founded), so those schools will probably go back to more of that, more community meetings being held in schools,” Blackmon said.
The idea of community schools goes back to prioritizing education and town unity, according to Downs.
“You look at the school as the center of the community,” Downs said. “You work with businesses. You work with this concept of wrap-around services where you obviously focus on the 10 hours a day where the kids are in school, but then there are partners working with those 14 hours a day where kids go home and some go home to different backgrounds.”
By making each school a community school, the CCSD will aim to unify both the school district and Athens-Clarke County, Downs says.
“We’re working to ameliorate those kind of gaps, part of what community schools do, and I think it’s what Clarke County is doing under (Superintendent) Phil (Lanoue),” Downs said.
