State has begun process to close Macon Charter Academy

The state Department of Education has begun the process of closing Macon Charter Academy, but it could take up to 90 days to do so.

The reasons for the move were not immediately available, but the state Board of Education's District Flexibility and Charter Schools Committee discussed the situation on Wednesday.

"All we can say at this time is that the process for initiating termination of MCA's charter has begun" within the state Department of Education, Lou Erste, associate state superintendent for charter schools, said in an email Thursday.

A charter school operates under a performance contract, or charter, that details the school's mission, programs, performance goals and more.

Ed Grant, president of MCA's governing board, said he had not been notified about termination discussions at the state level as of Thursday afternoon.

"I have not heard anything from the state at this point," he said.

Erste indicated that the school had been notified Thursday morning.

Grant said state officials had visited the school on multiple occasions during the six weeks since MCA began working with Prestige Charter School Solutions in February. He said the school had "made a lot of progress" in that time and that he had not received any negative feedback from site visits.

"We had no indication this was even remotely possible," Grant said.

He referred to statements Erste made when the state approved the contract with Prestige, when Erste said that officials "affirmed that we will not be seeking closure of MCA." With the recent change of course, the state education department "flip-flopped" on its opinion regarding the school, Grant said.

"I'm just getting all kind of mixed signals from the state," he said.

One of those visits could be the source of the termination proceedings, said Curtis Jones, superintendent of Bibb County schools. He said he believed that state officials came to observe MCA after one of the mandatory monthly progress reports sent from the school to the Department of Education.

"Based on that site visit, the state concluded that some of the things in the (report) were not true," he said.

Jones added that the contract with Prestige always seemed to be a point of concern for state officials. The services of Prestige, which also works with Macon's Academy for Classical Education, were not viewed as a drastic enough step to provide the desired results.

"I'm not convinced the state thought Prestige was as much of a turnaround as they had hoped," he said.

The school required a turnaround company after concerns about its governance, academics, finance and operations were raised in September, eventually landing MCA on probation. The school opened in August, but classes were held at the Macon Coliseum for three weeks while workers finished construction. HighMark School Development provided more than $8 million in funding for the school.

Even though it has been in operation less than one school year, the school is on its third governing board and second principal. The first principal, Ron Boykins, resigned in January and was replaced by Tahisha Edwards.

HEARING LIKELY

There are still several steps in the process for the termination to become final, according to the email from Erste.

The termination letter is now under review by the state school board, which would then decide whether to approve the process or not. Then a notice of a termination hearing would be sent to MCA.

The school could decide to give up its charter, which would eliminate the need for a hearing. Otherwise, that would be when the state school board decides whether to actually terminate the charter.

That course of action could take 45 to 90 days, Erste said.

Due to that timeline, it is unlikely the school would close before the end of this school year.

"When we briefed the SBOE's District Flexibility and Charter Schools Committee on this issue yesterday (Wednesday), they urged us to expedite this matter so parents will know as soon as possible that their school may not be open next year," he wrote.

That could lead to an enrollment dip, Jones said, and at least one parent had already decided to pull her child from the school as of Thursday.

Shannon Williams is the mother of a kindergarten student at MCA, and she said that she would be putting her child in a different school when classes resume after spring break on Monday.

Williams said she hated to make that call because her child's teacher, Kayla Kittrell, was so "awesome" in the classroom.

"She's just soaking them up with so much stuff," Williams said.

Similar departures would also put the school's future in doubt beyond its first year of operation.

"I would say it's probably 50 to 75 percent the school would close," Jones said.

To contact writer Jeremy Timmerman, call 744-4331 or find him on Twitter@MTJTimm.

This story was originally published March 31, 2016 at 5:41 PM with the headline "State has begun process to close Macon Charter Academy ."