GREENE COUNTY
Both Lake Oconee Academy and the Greene County School System are working on their five-year strategic plans, but they are developing their plans independently of each other.
The long-range plans are being developed as LOA’s lawsuit against the Board of Education is well into its third year with no end in sight. Also, the school district’s plan to build a new PreK through 5th-grade school on Meadow Crest Road behind Home Depot is under fire. Residents of Union Point worry that their children will be bused away from their neighborhoods, and the local school, Greene County Primary School, will be closed.
Parents, children and taxpayers are watching closely to see how educators in the county plan to solve the extreme disparity in academic scores between LOA and the other county schools. Merging schools has been a recent flashpoint on social media.
The Greene County School System has been holding public meetings in recent weeks to gather feedback from the community to help update its five-year plan.
Lake Oconee Academy CEO Otho Tucker told the Board of Governors Monday night that LOA’s accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) is up for review, and that report of the school’s academic performance will comprise a large part of LOA’s strategic plan. The school is also beginning work on the application for the renewal of its charter, which expires in 2024. Tucker says that will make up the other large portion of its strategic plan.
“We know that the renewal application,” Tucker said, “is a guestimation or summary of where we think we might be going. Obviously, a plan like that is never 100 percent on track, and things over the years will change.”
Still, its content will be critical in what could be a heated negotiation between LOA, the BOE and the Georgia Board of Education. The details of the wording in the current LOA charter and its renewal application are at the core of LOA’s lawsuit against the BOE over student funding. Both sides have accused the other of violating the terms of the charter.
Later in Monday’s meeting, Tucker said the school needs to start holding regular public meetings to be more transparent. LOA Board member Dick Schmidt agreed.
“I think that, generally speaking, we do a lot better job of educating kids than we do about telling people what we’re doing,” Schmidt said. “The public information meetings are the least we can do.”
He suggested having regular quarterly or biannual meetings to report the state of the school, what’s going on, what’s not going on and where they are in the strategic plan.
“Those are the things people want to know about,” Schmidt said.
Nothing has been scheduled yet. Quincy Chaffin, one of the two new LOA Board members who were approved at a special called meeting on Sept. 23, told the board how he had been a vocal critic of LOA when it started. His feelings changed after getting to know Tucker. His older daughter graduated from LOA and plans to go to law school in January. His younger child attended Pre-K and Kindergarten at LOA, but this year the family decided to switch her to Greene County Primary School in Union Point because, he said, some children learn differently.
“I tell everybody that LOA is a great school,” Chaffin said, “but LOA is not a school for every kid.”
Tucker thanked him for joining the board and that his “vision from both directions will be helpful for a lot of people.”
The other new board member, Mike Kelly, was not able to make the meeting. He was the founding LOA board chair and now returns to volunteer more time on the board.
Tucker told the board that the new Arts Center building is just weeks away from being ready. The building’s windows are finally in and they are now waiting on furniture. He expects it will be open to students after the fall break.
Also at Monday’s LOA Board meeting:
• As of this month the school has 402 applications for enrollment on the lottery waiting list. Eleven of them are priority students – children of school staff or siblings of current LOA students.
• Tucker took time to brag on the success and improvement of some of the school’s extracurricular activities from football and cross country to cheerleading and one-act plays.
• Board member Jennifer Vaughn reported that the LOA Foundation made almost $50,000 in this year’s golf tournament fundraiser.