In a hastily called special meeting, the Lake Oconee Academy Board of Governors last Friday voted to ask the Georgia Department of Education to allow the charter school to increase its enrollment above the charter limit of 1,051.
The charter allows LOA to petition the Georgia DOE for up to a 15 percent increase in enrollment each year. LOA wants permission to raise the limit by 2.9 percent to 1,081 students in grades K-12.
But the current enrollment at LOA is already at 1,081, according to CEO Otho Tucker. The request is for the increase to be retroactively effective this school year.
LOA board attorney Richard Schmidt told the Lake Oconee News that it is not clear if this is a violation of the charter.
“Depending on how you interpret the charter, we are covering our bases,” Schmidt said. “We’re simply asking that our enrollment be increased to the amount necessary to allow the kids that we previously enrolled here to continue to matriculate through the process.”
The request by LOA to increase the enrollment cap is at the heart of its lawsuit against the BOE over student funding which has lingered on for two years with no resolution in sight.
The lawsuit LOA contends that the Greene County BOE is receiving state funds for every Greene County student but is not passing along the payments to LOA for all of its students.
This year, the Board of Education is funding 1,032 students enrolled at LOA. The school is covering the cost for the remaining 49 of the 1,081 students it says are at the school. The BOE says LOA’s application in 2016 for its charter extension included a schedule of the number of students it would enroll and get paid for each year. This school year, it’s 1,032.
Since that charter was signed, the BOE had agreed each year to pay LOA for an additional number of students above the enrollment limit in the charter application. In August 2020, the BOE stopped funding the extra students, which prompted the LOA lawsuit.
LOA believes the signed charter supersedes the application, so it does not include the limits listed in the application and that the BOE is required to fund all students the school chooses to enroll up to the maximum allowed.
“The concept was that we would have four classes at each grade level,” Schmidt said. “And the agreement early on was that we were going to be allowed to have that fourth class, so we started adding that fourth class,” LOA says the only way to stay within the charter enrollment limit would be to unenroll students who are already attending, which they don’t want to do.
BOE Chairman Mike Lynch told the Lake Oconee News that LOA has enrolled more than 1,081 students.
“Here is an example of where they have already violated one of the important terms of their charter,” he said, adding that existing students don’t need to be kicked out to get LOA’s enrollment back to what it should be.
“I believe they have 35 people that were on their rolls at the end of last year that did not show up for school this year,” Lynch said. “They typically lose 6-7 percent of their students every year, in total, so adhering to the 1,051 and matriculation, attrition will more than handle that. You don’t have to disenroll any kids, and we would not be for disenrolling any kids.”
The charter appears to leave the decision about expanding LOA’s enrollment to the state Department of Education, which will make the decision based on, if “the charter school has met all compliance requirements and charter contract goals.” It’s unclear if the Board of Education will have input and, if so, what that would be.
As for the lawsuit, Lynch said that last week LOA rejected the latest settlement offer from the BOE, so they’re discussing what to do next. The BOE also contends that Greene County’s situation is unique. They say the state formula for funding charter schools is unfair, and LOA is getting plenty of money to operate.
Both sides have filed written arguments and depositions with Fulton County Superior Court, which is hearing the case. They are seeking a quick decision, a summary judgment, to avoid going to trial.