Teachers and students say goodbye at the end of the final day of school at Oakland Elementary in Cartecay, Ga., east of Ellijay. The school is closing, but a community group wants to open a charter school in the building.
Staff photo by John Rawlston/Chattanooga Times Free PressELLIJAY, Ga. – A group of people trying to start a charter school in Gilmer County say their struggle is a perfect example of why a statewide charter approval commission should not have been ruled unconstitutional.
Because the Georgia Supreme Court overruled a 2008 law establishing the Georgia Charter Schools Commission, those wishing to open charter schools must get approval from their local school board. And in many cases, school boards want to keep charter schools out of their districts.
That’s exactly the problem the Gilmer group says it faces. In the past, if the Gilmer school board had rejected the charter application for Oakland Academy, the decision could have been appealed to the statewide commission.
“I really don’t think we got a fair shake at the local board of education,” said Isaac Lassiter, a parent and founding board chairman of Oakland Academy. “This is the perfect example of the type of nonsense you get from local school boards that are the sole decision-making group on charter schools.”
The Gilmer County Board of Education has not voted on an application for Oakland Academy. Superintendent Bryan Dorsey pulled a waiver request for Oakland off a recent board agenda, saying the board has other, more pressing matters to consider.