Nine charter renewal requests from the Greene County Board of Education (BOE) prompted a lengthy discussion at last week’s Lake Oconee Academy (LOA) Board of Governors meeting.
The need for a charter renewal, necessary every five years, has been top of mind for both the administration and parents. It has prompted heated discussions among the two groups and fueled a speculative discourse online.
Among the nine revisions requested are: a strategic plan having measurable and outcome-based goals; building plans subject to prior approval; enrollment of only children of full-time teachers and administrators; and clarification of enrollment priority and audits to be performed by the State of Georgia Department of Audits.
Several board members were asking for rationale following a meeting with Superintendent of Greene County Schools Dr. Chris Houston and new LOA CEO Dr.Brad Bowling.
Former CEO and now a consultant to the board, Dr. Otho Tucker, challenged both the audit request and the necessary documentation for future enrollment of students limited to only parttime workers. “Any student needing admission from school personnel will be addressed,” he said.
Currently, the school has given admission for children to those working part-time and has included people who volunteer at the school for after-hours, substitutes, and contract workers. Critics allege that it shuts out parents who need to work fulltime and can not offer part-time assistance. Its lottery process, conducted electronically, fuels speculation as to those admitted under gratis as well. LOA claims that the priority status is noted as students seeking admittance from existing personnel.
“The request for the audit specifics comes with two reasons,” Houston said. “First, the charter school should, as a component of the school district, be subject to the same audit.
Secondly, the state audit process is done at no expense and would be free to them instead of the cost LOA currently incurs each year by using a separate audit.”
As to the rationale behind the admittance of future students, the BOE cited a current law on the books.
“This directly relates to the Georgia official code, OCGA 20-2-2066,” Houston said. “This states that a student whose parents or guardian is a member of the governing board of the charter school or is a full-time teacher, professional or other employee.”
Bowling was instructed to again meet with the BOE to discuss the necessary clarifications to the charter as outlined. LOA also presented a comprehensive review it conducted on both third and fourth-grade students, which is outranking the state average. Its criteria looked at two levels of proficiency for students – proficient learner and distinguished learner.
According to Dr. Bower, the testing reviewed showed significantly higher rankings for those grades.
“We looked at the differences in those two key groups,” he said. “Both are outperforming the state rankings, and it speaks to the instructional resources and educational efforts of the school.
It was important to ascertain if they had grown as students.
For instance, in third grade for English Language Arts, we were above average, and at the end of the grade, students were reading at or above level.”
LOA currently has its own performance-level committees, where teachers get together, break down data, and use it to form best practice modules.
Other student-focused efforts include peer observation in the classroom setting and interventionists to address deficiencies.
Like the BOE, algebra continues to be an area of focus for both teachers and students.
Dr. Bonnie Holiday of the Georgia Charter Schools Association addressed its best practices in Board Governance and Composition. Of note is that existing board members should reflect diversity on its board. According to Chairman Michael Thompson, the school is currently working on the best representation of that.
Additionally, he noted that parent boards are not the most effective. However, its current makeup is three board members having children at the school – Sara Peacock, Jennifer Vaughan, and Kristina Jaskte.
The association stressed the importance of objectivity in a board makeup.