Mounting outside pressure to resolve their legal, financial and personality differences may be pushing Lake Oconee Academy and the Greene County Board of Education to some sort of agreement about the future of education in the county.
A crowd of 35 LOA parents and other interested parties sat face to face across from five members of the LOA Board of Governors and CEO Otho Tucker at the board’s monthly meeting Monday night. They were there to show unity for a grassroots effort to get LOA to drop its September 2020 lawsuit over funding against the BOE.
It turned out to be a night of surprises including a handshake and applause.
What looked like a typically short meeting with little news abruptly changed when Tucker announced that he had met for more than two hours earlier in the day with School Superintendent Chris Houston about the future of education in the county.
“I was very encouraged and I think he was too. It went very, very well. We had some good, candid conversations,” Tucker said. “We talked about the legal issue. We talked about some school plans and looking at new facilities and student growth. Of course, their new building, what our capacity issues are and how we can try to stem the tide of trading students back and forth.”
During public comment, Roger Fields, organizer of the Lake Country Conservatives group, which made up most of the audience, repeated comments he’s made to both boards, urging them to stop the lawsuit.
“Please do whatever it takes,” he said, “to get together and stop it because we’re tired of seeing our tax dollars go to waste.”
But this time, he wanted a commitment from the board to resolve the problem by the end of July. He coaxed a handshake from Vice Chairman Michael Thompkins, who was running the meeting for Chairman Mark Lipscomb. Lipscomb did not attend for medical reasons.
Tompkins emphasized he was only one person on the board, but the handshake brought loud applause from the audience.
Then, the LOA board went into executive session presumably to discuss the lawsuit.
Honest instant discussion
But those left in the room, including BOE Chairman Mike Lynch and Vice Chairman Steve Kilgore, used the time to talk. What resulted was a very rare and open discussion between members of the public and their elected officials.
“This meeting that Chris and Otho had today started because of the Development Authority,” Lynch said at one point.
Recently, more pressure to resolve the lawsuit has come from the Greene County Development Authority (GCDA). Authority members – including heavyweights Rabun Neal, president of Reynolds Lake Oconee, County Commissioner Dee Lindsey and GCDA Chairman Scott Tolleson – had expressed concern to both boards that low scores and educational dysfunction are the main deterrent when trying to convince people, businesses and industry to locate in Greene County.
“We had a meeting where we agreed that we would start to work with LOA and that Chris and Otho would go off and start to understand what’s the end game,” Lynch told the group. “The end game is not where we are today which is two school systems, 2,600 students.
At its campus, south of I-20 near the lake, LOA offers grades pre-kindergarten through high school, which duplicates the grades spread out over the county’s four other schools, all located north of I-20.
Lynch said he thinks there should be two kindergarten through eighth grade systems with one common high school. He quickly added he is only one vote on the five member BOE.
“That, to me, recognizes that the people who come to school down here (LOA) and the people to go to school up there (Greene County schools) are different,” he explained.
One parent expressed concern about that, saying they understand some of the discipline problems now at LOA are caused by “intercounty transfers.”
“The issue in this county is the north of I-20 system has consistently been one of the poorest. We’ve spent a lot of effort and money and resources on it and it is turning around,” Lynch said. “We have, for example, 45 kids that did not have a home north of I-20. We’re designing programs to deal with that. The test results are starting to show that they’re having an effect.”
Regina Gainer, who will be the new District 3 member of the Board of Education, also attended the meeting.
“I was happy when I heard that at some point we’re going to come together because this is an embarrassment. Every child deserves to have the same education,” Gainer said. “Yes, we’re going to have to do some work to bring everybody together at the same level but every child deserves it.”
There was talk about test scores and a series of public input meetings to update the school system’s strategic plan.
The board returns
When the LOA board returned from its executive session, Tucker expressed even more optimism from his meetings with Houston. He indicated an agreement that would end the lawsuit could come as soon as the end of June.
“We’re really just now putting together the details,” Tucker said. “On some of them we’re both on exactly the same page.”
The room again broke out in applause.
But the devil is always in the details. Just last month the BOE sent a proposal to the LOA board, thinking it was an offer to end LOA’s lawsuit that the charter school wouldn’t refuse. But they did.
On Tuesday, Lynch told the Lake Oconee News that he has been briefed on the Tucker-Houston talks and he feels it might be a bit optimistic to think that an agreement could be reached in three weeks.
“The great news is that we’re talking,” he said.
Houston was unavailable for comment.
Tucker told the Lake Oconee News on Tuesday that earlier in the day he had a second discussion with Houston, and they plan to set up bi-weekly meetings for the future.
“I shouldn’t speak for him,” Tucker said, “but I think we both feel that we’re on a positive track for education in Greene County as a whole. That’s big!”