After eight years of involvement with charter schools, I think I have learned one truth above others—it is incredibly difficult to start a charter school. I have heard more than once over the past year from people who want to start charter schools. They are uniformly enthusiastic and are eager, no, desperate for any piece of advice I can offer as someone who has managed to start a grassroots charter school. The grassroots charter school is the school that is started by a group of community residents without the oversight or control of a Charter Management Organization (CMO) or an Education Management Organization (EMO). Our school is independently governed and operated. The only piece of advice I feel is useful to them is that the work is hard, and that if they are not prepared to commit completely to the task, then they should not even begin.
The reasons why it is so hard to start a charter school are myriad—it requires a comprehensive and professionally crafted petition, a dedicated and diverse founding board, community support, a total comfort with uncertainty, and a lot of luck. There are few endeavors in life where maximum effort applied with maximum competence can yield zero results, but starting a charter school is one such endeavor. At Latin Academy, we were fortunate to navigate the perilous waters of authorization successfully, being the only grassroots start-up charter school authorized in the state in 2010-2011. That was an achievement in and of itself. Latin Academy is associated withBuilding Excellent Schools, a national urban charter school formation program which has helped to launch over 50 charter schools in 18 different states. Until Latin Academy’s authorization by Atlanta Public Schools (APS), Building Excellent Schools had never successfully won authorization from a local school board to launch a Georgia charter. July 11th, 2011, the date of our authorization, is one that holds a prominent and joyous place in our school’s history. Though authorization is not an easy thing to come by, too much delay and resting on laurels can result in an authorized school that never opens for students. So, we spent every day after our authorization preparing to clear the hurdles that stand between getting the permission to have a school and actually having one. From nothing, we have had to recruit students, find a building, hire staff, and plan for the actual day-to-day of the school. Nothing along that journey was simple or came easy—for instance, our start-up year coincided with a tension-filled and controversial redistricting process within APS that placed charters (particularly new ones) under an increased level of public scrutiny. We also had challenges finding a suitable facility—we did not learn that we would have a place to open in until the 2nd week of July. Regardless of those challenges, we have managed to overcome each one—we have all of our students, we have all of our wonderful staff, and we do have a building. Though that is a significant accomplishment, it is not enough, and it is not why we have undertaken this work. All the work over two years that we’ve done to create Latin Academy was only so that we could have an opportunity to address the real issue that brought us to this work—the significant academic challenges of our southwest Atlanta children. We opened to 92 very bright and eager 6th grade students three weeks ago, and I can see the elements of our plan falling into place, and our school slowly but surely turning into the Academy our students need it to be. The pathway of starting a charter school is fraught with more opportunities to fail than Odysseus’ road back to Penelope, but we are thrilled to have made it to this point and eager to make the most of a remarkable opportunity. We cannot know yet whether Latin Academy will be a good school, but as of August 6th, it is a real school, and one that we are all hopeful will be a transformative influence on children’s lives. Author Chris Clemons is the Founder and Principal of Latin Academy Charter School in Atlanta, Georgia.
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