Both sides put aside at least one disagreement in the ongoing battle between the Greene County Board of Education and Lake Oconee Academy following LOA’s most recent Board of Governor’s meeting held at the school on May 6.
On April 30, LOA responded to an ethics complaint filed earlier in April by GCSS Superintendent Chris Houston alleging violations that LOA says are either unsupported by fact or based on an inaccurate interpretation of the law.
The nine-page response was posted to the LOA website and included a synopsis of eight items on the ethics complaint LOA is disputing.
The GCSS complaint alleges that LOA and former CEO Otho Tucker violated O.C.G.A. [Official Code of Georgia] 20-2-2066 by granting enrollment preferences to the children of part-time employees.
According to that section of Georgia law, “a start-up charter school may give enrollment preference to . . . a student whose parent or guardian is a member of the governing board of the charter school or is a full-time teacher, professional, or other employee at the charter school.”
LOA interprets the law to mean that state law allows the charter school to grant an enrollment preference to part-time employees. This provides the school with experienced employees who don’t impact the school’s budget the way full-time employees might.
LOA says that GCSS has misinterpreted the language that “full-time teachers, professionals, or other employees” may have an enrollment preference.
LOA argues that the “specific legal interpretation of full-time shows that it only applies to teachers and not professionals or other employees. The state legislature has revised the law to clarify this long-held interpretation. Dr. Tucker did not violate the Code of Ethics for Educators by utilizing the correct legal interpretation of the law over the School District’s interpretation.”
Downstream from this allegation, LOA says that the Greene County School District incorrectly alleges that “Tucker violated a standard by misuse of Public Funds and Property by enrolling and paying for students that the School District believes should not have been enrolled. There is no proof or facts associated with this allegation.”
Further, LOA says accusing Tucker of denying students with disabilities access to LOA because of these enrollment preferences instead shows that the School District is failing to provide quality education to its students and, by requiring an enrollment cap, the School District is guilty of failing to provide an appropriate education for hundreds of children.”
Several more disagreements are presented in the news release on the website, most of them stemming from the single disputed interpretation of the law.
The last item on LOA’s list of responses indicates that “LOA has reason to believe that Superintendent Houston’s complaint is part of a long-term plan to convert GCSS to a “Charter School System,” absorb LOA within the Charter School System, and create one comprehensive, county-wide high school.”
However, this misunderstanding was dealt with during a GCSS BOE meeting held on June 15, 2023.
According to reporting in the Lake Oconee News in the June 23, 2023, edition, “the Greene County Board of Education . . . corrected an error in a draft of the five-year Strategic Plan document that slipped past reviewers and made it onto the BOE website, causing quite a bit of consternation among some parents and stakeholders.
“Near the end of the 55-page document, under the heading of BOE goals, there was a statement concerning the desire of the GCSS to transition into a charter system.
One of the action strategies included in the document states that GCSSS wants to move from a strategic waiver school system and “grow a system of schools leading to one common high school with both Advanced Academics and Career Academy.”
At that time, some interpreted the entry about moving to a system with one typical high school as a possible threat to Lake Oconee Academy’s High School programs.
Given the lawsuit involving enrollment and funding and the squabbles between the GCBOE and LOA, confusion and speculation about the strategic plan document started almost immediately on social media.
The BOE voted to strike the sentence indicating a desire to move to a system of schools with one typical high school and to replace it with the following: “To move to a school system where all the relevant boards work together for the benefit of all the students.”
District 4 Board Member Dr. Maggie Kjer apologized to the public for the mistake in the document attached to the BOE agenda posted on the BOE website last June.
“I was just as shocked as you were,” Kjer said. “We are very sorry about this. That was not the intent of this board at all.”
LOA representatives present at the Board of Governors Meeting said they would revise the news release on the website to reflect the new understanding of the GCSS's intentions.