RINGGOLD, Ga. — Catoosa County has two traditional high schools, a learning center and a new high school coming online this year.

The high schools have strong programs and meet federal standards under the No Child Left Behind Act, but a group of Catoosa County residents believes there are students whose needs are not met by the traditional high schools or the learning center.

“We don’t think the school system is doing a bad job,” said Phil Erli, one of a group that is petitioning the Catoosa County Board of Education for permission to start a charter school. “But, what we see is that not every kid learns the same way, and there needs to be alternatives. We think a charter school is one way to provide that.”

The group has made presentations to the school board and has until Aug. 1 to file a business plan.

The Evitt Foundation, a 501(c) nonprofit organization, is providing financial sponsorship, said Mr. Erli, a Catoosa County resident and president of the Ringgold Telephone Co., which is owned by the Evitt family.

Catoosa County Board of Education member David Moeller said he believes charter schools can help the district improve student achievement and graduation rates.

“Our superintendent has put together a graduation task force that is working on recommendations to help improve graduation rates,” Mr. Moeller said. “We were talking about kids who drop out because traditional school is not for them. The vision we are looking at is charter schools.”

Since Georgia passed charter school legislation in 1993, 71 charter school now operate in the state, including the Whitfield County Career Academy, which opened in 2005.

If the Catoosa County school board approved this proposal, it would be the first such school for the county.

Technology will be a key theme for the new charter school, Mr. Erli said.

The group has prepared a great deal of research for the proposal, which calls for every student to have a laptop computer and focus on project-based learning, where students learn by completing projects that involve multiple disciplines.

“We hope to have a biology/medical lab, a forensics research lab and a law and policy lab where students can be involved in the kinds of experiences they need to earn the credits to graduate and to take the standardized tests they have to take,” Mr. Erli said.

Under Georgia state law, charter schools are granted more flexibility in regulations in return for being held more accountable for student achievement. There are several different types of charters approved under state law including a charter originated by the school district, a conversion charter, which means converting an existing school into a charter school; start-up charter schools and state chartered schools.

Whitfield Career Academy is a hybrid form of career/technology schools that was approved in recent years.

“We’ve seen our graduation rates up. “We’ve got kids we can document that are staying in school who otherwise would have quit,” Whitfield County school board vice chairman Chuck Oliver said.

Though he is supportive of the career academy, Mr. Oliver said he would be concerned about a charter school proposal that did not originate from within the school district.

“There is a big huge difference between that and a group that comes to a school board and says, ‘We don’t think our kids are getting what they need from your school, and we want to start our own,’” he said. “You have to give them their share of state dollars (per pupil) and it dilutes the financial support of the district.”

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