Charter System On Fr. Co. Board of Ed Meeting Agenda Tonight

The Franklin County Board of Education will meet in a called session tonight and is expected to take action on whether to make Franklin County a charter school system.

Tonight’s meeting takes place at 6p at the Administrative offices on Busha Rd in Carnesville.

According to the National Charter Resource Center website, a charter school is a public school that is independently run. It receives greater flexibility over operations in exchange for increased performance accountability.

The Franklin County school system currently operates under a Strategic Waiver System.

At a December meeting, the Board received an update from Middle School Principal CJ Wilder who has been spearheading the research into what’s involved in switching to a charter system and its benefits.

Wilder said a charter system would give the Franklin County’s school system more flexibility, but there’s a trade-off.

“You get full flexibility within the law,” he said. “However, the outcome is, ‘if I give you more flexibility then we want to see closer gains.’ And we believe that with the support of funding we would be able to do that.”

If Franklin County switches to a charter system, Wilder said the School Board would have to agree to a five-year contract and meet all the requirements of that contract.

“So there’s a timeline, a five-year charter contract. the goal would be that the assessments would start to beat the odds, increasing the CCRPI, the middle school is just below the state average by 2%. So, in five years time we would be at or above the average. In our case and in many of the schools it is a highly attainable option,” he said.

Other parts of the charter contract might also include areas such as the school’s mission, instructional program, governance, personnel, finance, plans for student enrollment, and how all these are measured.

Wilder said however that a big part of the switch is to institute governance boards made up of parents and other stakeholders to work alongside the Board of Education.

“They would be required to have training as you board members do, they would be required to have seven to 11 elected parents and teachers. The majority of which are community stakeholders, our parents. So, it’s a good option to get more input before it comes before the board. So, it just makes everything more clear for everyone and everyone has some buy in and say in the process before it comes to you,” Wilder explained.

Wilder said if the Board agrees to switch to a charter system, there would be a resolution the Board members would have to sign.

If Franklin County moves to a charter system, they would be the 46th school system in the state to make that switch.