State BOE Approves Cherokee Charter Academy

Just four days after the Cherokee County Board of Education denied its third petition for a charter, the state Board of Education approved Cherokee Charter Academy as a state-chartered special school this morning.

It wasn't the option that the Georgia Charter Educational Foundation, the body that governs Cherokee Charter Academy, preferred.

Charters approved by the state board are eligible for state funding, not local school tax dollars.

"Although we are pursuing State Special Charter School status as an option," Cherokee Charter Academy organizers wrote in a June 10 letter to parents, "we strongly prefer to be approved by the local School Board as it will provide more certainty to our funding and ability to operate the school."

But with weeks left before the school's scheduled Aug. 1 opening, the state BOE was the only option the school had.

It's been a long month for the county's first charter school.

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Cherokee Charter Academy turned to the local school board. .

Senate Majority Leader Chip Rogers, R-Woodstock, applauded the state BOE's vote.

"Giving students more educational opportunities is always the right thing to do," he said.

State Superintendent John Barge echoed that sentiment.

“Today’s action by the State Board ensures that the students affected by the recent Supreme Court decision will still get to go to the school they originally chose,” he  said. “We said from the beginning that we would offer flexibility so the Commission Schools could continue educating students next year and the board’s courageous vote today guarantees that.”

Cherokee Charter Academy will operate out of the former home of American Heritage Academy in Canton. Approximately 995 students were selected to be part of the school's inaugural class during a May lottery.

The charter begins Friday and is good until June 2013.