School board approves 'charter district' contract with state -- Online Athens
A Clarke County School District plan to become a so-called “charter district” is set to go to the state Board of Education for approval at the end of this month, according to school officials.
A proposed contract between the state and the local school district was scheduled for a February vote by both the local and state boards of education. Clarke County School Superintendent Phil Lanoue asked it be removed from the state board’s agenda because the details of the proposed contract didn’t match what Clarke asked for in its proposal, however.
Now officials have ironed out those differences, Lanoue told the Clarke County Board of Education Thursday.
The local board approved the revised contract, but not unanimously. Board members Ovita Thornton and Linda Davis abstained.
Davis said she wasn’t “fully comfortable” that she clearly understood everything in the lengthy contract, she said.
Clarke won’t get everything it asked for in its charter proposal, Lanoue said.
The plan originally called for the use of school-wide scores on measures of literacy to evaluate teacher effectiveness, rather than the state-mandated “Student Learning Objectives,” or SLOs, now in use.
That’s out now; charter districts are allowed to waive state rules, but not that one, according to state Department of Education officials. Literacy measures are OK to use only with literacy-specific instruction such as reading.
“The state pretty much said clearly, ‘No, we’re not going to allow you to do that,’” said Tim Jarboe, the school district’s director of assessment and accountability.
The state legislature may change the role of SLOs in evaluating teachers, however, Lanoue said. State law now calls for student grades on standardized tests to count for 50 percent of a teacher’s grade in the state’s “Teacher Keys Effectiveness System.”
Pending legislation could reduce the importance of SLOs in teacher evaluations, however.
Local and state administrators were able to work out some other conflicts, such as the timetable for setting up and training so-called “local school governance teams,” or LSGTs, Lanoue and Jarboe told board members. Thursday.
“We’ve determined that what we’ve asked for in our petition is mostly there,” Lanoue said.
But the school district’s Athens Community Career Academy remains under the control of the Clarke County Board of Education - but as a program, rather than a separate school. State officials told Clarke officials the career academy would have to be privatized, operated by a non-profit corporation.
A planned apprenticeship program can also go forward, if those “workplace experiences” are linked with specific high school courses, Lanoue said.
“We can get to where we need to be,” he said.
If the state Board approves the contract March 31, Clarke officials would soon set up and train LSGTs for each of Clarke County’s 20 public schools. The school district wouldn’t become a charter district until fall, 2017, however.
Under a new state-mandated program, school systems now have to choose to be “traditional,” a “strategic waivers” system or a charter system.
Charter and strategic waivers systems don’t have to follow all the normal school rules and regulations that traditional schools must follow (though some still apply). They have more say in how they spend money, and may ask for more freedom to hire teachers who are not certified to teach in a particular subject area, for example.
In exchange for that freedom - “flexibility,” in the state’s language - school districts promise in a formal contract to use innovative educational methods to improve student learning.
Charter systems must also install LSGTs at each school, unelected groups that under state law must have real decision-making authority in personnel, curriculum and other areas - but at the same time may not usurp the powers of a school district’s elected school board.
Lanoue believes the school teams can help boost community support of and participation in the county’s public schools, he has told board members.
Follow education reporter Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH or twitter.com/LeeShearer
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