Floyd County Schools was approved as a Charter System by the State Board of Education on Thursday, May 13, 2010. Floyd County is the sixth school system in the state to be approved as a Charter and the largest school system in Georgia to seek Charter status.  A citizens committee made up of parents, business representatives, teachers, and principals studied flexibility options available to local school systems and recommended Floyd County Schools seek Charter System status. Floyd County Schools will be a Georgia Charter School System beginning July 1, 2010.

The process was community driven from the beginning with no central level school system administrators involved in the Flexibility Study Committee as voting members. The study group held Innovation Discussions in each school community to get teacher and community input into what our schools could look like under charter system status.  The ideas generated from those Innovation Discussions were then used by the committee to develop the charter application.

Charter System status will give the Floyd County School system freedom from many state rules and regulations in exchange for the system’s agreement to increase academic achievement by students. Charter does not free the school system from rules and regulations that are tied to the determination of federal AYP status.  For instance, the system would be able to adjust the school calendar, student scheduling, seat time required by students to get class credit or rigid graduation requirements that may not fit the needs of all students.  An item the system would not be able to alter would be state standardized testing. The CRCT tests are used in the federal AYP determination and could not be altered.  The system would be able to enjoy many of the freedoms that are currently helping to make the system’s new charter school, the Floyd County Schools College & Career Academy, a model of excellence for the state. The system would be able to structure the local education program to meet the needs or our students and our community instead of having to comply with rigid state mandates that may not be in the best interest of our children.

All school systems in Georgia will be required to make a decision to be a Charter System, an IE2 System or Status Quo System by 2013.  Local control and decision making opportunities were top priorities for the Flexibility Study Committee and a main determining factor in the community committee selecting Charter System status.Charter system requires each local school to have its own governing body and moves many decisions down to the school level. Floyd County’s local governance will be called Local School Governance Teams and will consist of the principal, two staff members, two parents and two community leaders. The staff members and parents will be elected by those they represent and will work with the school community to meet the needs of the children in each school and seek to meet the goals of the school system. 

“Our school system has been a leader in education in Georgia and with increased flexibility to do what is best for our students and our community we can speed our academic improvement even further,” said Dr. Lynn Plunkett, superintendent of Floyd County Schools. “With our parents, teachers and community working together, we can effectively propel our school system, students and community to a brighter future.”