GREENE COUNTY
Monday night the Lake Oconee Academy Board of Governors approved a draft response to the Greene County Board of Education’s questions regarding LOA’s application for charter renewal.
LOA’s charter ends after the current school year.
Executive Director Brad Bowling explained to the board and about a dozen parents and interested parties who attended, including BOE Chairman Perry Lee and Vice Chair Steve Kilgore, that he hopes the responses show a willingness to compromise.
“We have worked pretty quickly to get this document back,” Bowling said. “I think you’ll see some things in there where there’s a clear indication we’re trying to work together and trying to get this thing done. So, I hope it will be met with that same sense of diplomacy.”
Bowling pointed out two issues as being important to LOA – the enrollment cap and priority in the lottery for children of LOA employees.
The enrollment cap was one of the main issues that sparked LOA’s 29-month lawsuit against the BOE which was settled in January. LOA can enroll as many students as it wants to. The charter agreement determines how many of those students will be funded by the BOE.
The lawsuit compromise limited funding for the school year that just started to 1,051 students. LOA’s current enrollment is 1,095. In its application, LOA suggested funding for 1,144 each year of the new 5-year charter. The BOE wants to limit the first year’s funding to 1,072 with a 2% increase each year.
A draft of the LOA response to BOE that was handed out at Monday’s meeting suggests a cap of 1,097 students in the first year which would increase to 1,144 in year two.
The other issue Bowling discussed was the BOE’s push to limit the number of children who get top priority in the annual enrollment lottery. The BOE wants to limit that to children of full-time teachers and administrators. Since the school opened in 2007, children of all employees of LOA have had priority over other applicants.
Former LOA CEO and current paid advisor to the LOA board, Otho Tucker, told the board that would be a mistake.
“I think if I’m an assistant teacher, I wouldn’t see my child is any different than another teacher’s,” Tucker said. “If I’m an employee that does the lawn care here, I’d still like to have my child in the school. I think you’re really setting a bad precedent.”
LOA also gives second priority to applicants who have siblings already enrolled in LOA.
Despite the conciliatory mood sought by both sides, the wording in the documents they exchange shows the tension that still remains.
In mid-July, the BOE sent a list of some 66 questions to LOA in response to its 470-page renewal application and support material. Nine of them were identified as “non-negotiable,” including the enrollment cap and priority students issues.
Elsewhere in the document, the BOE told LOA not to compare its test scores with the other Greene County schools and gave a list of schools it thought would be better for comparisons. BOE also suggested it should take ownership of all LOA buildings old and new “to make sure it fits into everyone’s strategic plan and so we can use ESPLOST funds.”
LOA’s position in many of their draft responses is that these are not the BOE’s decision since charter schools have operational authority and autonomy over how they are run.
LOA appears to reject efforts by the BOE to have administrators from each side work out operational agreements that LOA believes it should decide for itself. Examples include details of how BOE will fund LOA, cooperation on audits, sharing transportation, campus safety plans, and even how to handle disputes between the two boards in the future.
At this point in the process, the state allows LOA to set the deadline for the BOE to either accept or reject its charter renewal application. LOA says when their formal response is sent, expected this week or early next week, the BOE will have 30 days to decide.