The future of independent charter schools in Georgia rests in the hands of the state Supreme Court as it considers a case that could affect choice for parents and unravel a network of schools.
The case pits seven local school districts against the state in a showdown over money and power in public education. A Supreme Court decision, which could take up to six months to reach, will determine whether a state board authorizing and funding charter schools is acting legally or outside the law. It would also determine whether local school districts have the sole authority for creating charter schools.
More than 6,000 children, including students at Ivy Preparatory Academy in Norcross, could lose their schools based on the court’s decision.
“It’s an important case. How the court will rule I don’t know,” said former state Attorney General Mike Bowers, who represented Gwinnett County Public Schools in the hearing.
A crowd packed the court Tuesday to witness the proceedings, including about a dozen Ivy Prep students, members of the Gwinnett County Board of Education who launched the lawsuit, and state Speaker Pro Tem Jan Jones, R-Alpharetta. Jones wrote the legislation that created the commission.
Bowers and lawyers for six other school districts urged the court to overturn a Fulton County Superior Court decision upholding the constitutionality of the Georgia Charter Schools Commission and its ability to approve and fund charter schools, including those rejected by local districts. The Fulton decision ruled that commission charter schools are special schools and are entitled to be funded by the commission.
"This is fundamentally an issue of interpretation,” said Senior Assistant Attorney General Stefan Ritter, who represented the state in the hearing. “The only basis for their claims is that special must mean special needs. ... Charter schools are special in that they are unique. Charter schools offer unique education appropriate for their students.’’
Bowers argued that commission-authorized charter schools are not special schools allowed under the Georgia Constitution because they did not exist when it was written.
“ ‘Special schools' means today what it meant in 1982 ... schools for the deaf, blind and people of that nature,” he told the court. “It cannot mean anything else.”
Attorneys for the school districts from Atlanta, Griffin and Bulloch, Candler, DeKalb and Henry counties also argued that money flowing to its charter schools are local dollars. Commission-approved charters receive federal and state dollars. A source of contention is over the local matching funds that they also receive, which come from state allocations to the school districts that lose students to the charter schools.
Thomas Cox, who represented Atlanta and DeKalb, told the court : “Local money may not follow the child to a Georgia state special school.”
The justices peppered both sides with questions.
Justice David E. Nahmias asked Cox a pointed question: "So do any of the local tax dollars directly flow to charter schools?"
Cox responded, "There is no direct flow."
Bruce Brown, who represented Ivy Prep and two other charter schools named in the case, later told the court "not one dime" of local money flows to commission charter schools.
Brown added that if Gwinnett had an issue with state money being funneled to a charter school, then why is it not concerned about the state money being sent to Gwinnett County Public Schools to offset its tax digest, which is lower than many other districts.
"Gwinnett gets $37 million in equalization funding from the state," Brown said. "Is Gwinnett ready to give back that [money] just to get back that state funding we get for Ivy Prep?"
Gwinnett initially filed the case arguing that Ivy Prep, a girls school that has attracted some of its students, receives about $850,000 from a state allocationto the Gwinnett system. A Statesboro charter school also named in the case receives about $367,000 allocated to Bulloch County Schools and about $1,567 to Candler County Schools.
Ivy Prep's head of school, Nina Gilbert, said the school needed the money.
"We can't operate our school without it and have the same level of quality," Gilbert said.
About the Author
