Jackson-Madison school board denies amended application for American Classical Academy
The Jackson-Madison County School Board denied the amended application for American Classical Academy's charter school by a 5-1 vote at Tuesday's special-called meeting, following the board's initial denial of the preliminary application on April 27.
After public comment, the board ultimately voted to deny the amended application based on the Charter Review Team's recommendation. Harvey Walden, who also voted against denying the application in April's special-called meeting, was the sole opposing vote.
More: Jackson-Madison Co. school board denies ACA charter school on second attempt
More: Charter school application denied, public comments and application deficiencies discussed
JMCSS Attorney Dale Thomas read an adopted resolution, detailing a total of 73 reasons for the denial of the application, including but not limited to:
A $1.2 million negative financial impact on the district.
No mention in the application of a safety or crisis plan.
No confirmed location of where the charter school would be.
Lack of rigor in the proposed curriculum and no specific mention of a science curriculum.
A budget for Year 1 of operation that is "not complete or realistic."
More: Madison Co. school board to decide on opening ACA charter school
State commission can supersede decision
School board member Jason Compton spoke to the media following the meeting and explained that ACA now has 10 days to submit an appeal of the board's denial to the state's charter commission.
"Unfortunately, they [the state charter commission] can do whatever they want," Compton said. "After we have gone through all this and put all the time and effort into this, the one thing that's in this law that's very, very disheartening is that the state can come in and supersede anything that the local bodies can do."
Compton noted that in the event ACA decides to move forward with submitting an appeal to the state charter commission, JMCSS has 73 reasons — based on standards set by the state itself — for why they believe the state should uphold the board's ruling to deny the charter.
"The importance of that is giving the reasons so that when the state charter commission, if it is appealed to, then we were very specific on why we denied it. So now after two applications we're up to 120 points on why we denied the application, and I think that's important if that appeal comes to bite instead of us just saying we don't want it because that takes out the political aspect," Compton said.
This article originally appeared on Jackson Sun: ACA amended charter application denied by Jackson-Madison school board
