Smyrna school to close; charter is not renewed

Cobb County board cites lack of academic results, low growth.

More than a thousand students in Cobb County will have to find a new school this fall after the school board decided to close their charter school.

The International Academy of Smyrna’s academic results fell far below what it promised in its five-year charter the board approved in 2012.

After hearing an emotional appeal from parents to keep the school open, the board voted 6-1 not to renew the charter, which expires June 30, and to let the students enroll at any district school with space.

Charter schools are public schools that operate independently and are held accountable for academic results, finances and governance.

The school underperformed district and state averages on the state report card, the College and Career Ready Performance Index. It has relatively high poverty, which usually correlates with lower performance, yet underperformed most district schools with similar demographics.

The only reason charter schools exist is to produce academic success, Cobb Superintendent Chris Ragsdale told his school board. “The growth was not there. The academic success was not there,” he said, adding that his staff spent months gathering and mulling data to reach the recommendation to close the school.

Tony Waybright, a neighborhood and school advocate, said International Academy slightly outperformed some nearby county schools and has been a “stabilizing factor” for the area, so the board should keep it open.

But only one board member, Susan Thayer, voted in favor of the school, which she once worked as

a consultant for and is in the area she represents. Her husband previously served on the charter school’s board, as well. Thayer said earlier this week that she planned to support the school because “that’s what my community wants.”

She told the board Thursday she believed last year’s sharp decline in academic performance was so unusual it might have been recorded in error. She said her instincts told her this was a school worth saving. “When I go into a school I can tell if it’s a good school,” she said.

Parents described a place where the principal gives hugs and knows the children’s names. “It’s like you’re breaking up a marriage,” parent Dawn Farris, voice wavering, told the board. She asked members to vote with their hearts, but they chose to follow the data.

The school met four of the 21 goals in its charter.

“This isn’t a situation where I can say in good conscience ‘keep sending those babies to that school,’ “said board member David Morgan, a charter school advocate who once ran a charter school.

The school also has financial trouble, with only enough money to cover a few days of operations. The district concluded it owes $5.6 million more than it has in assets, leaving it vulnerable to immediate closure in the event of a crisis.

Principal Kari Schrock accused the district of shorting the school $2.1 million over three years. “Every issue raised today could have been avoided had we had proper funding,” Schrock said. She said that could have given it a bigger financial cushion and enabled it to pay teachers enough to reduce turnover, another problem Cobb cited.

Cobb staff blamed the school, saying it produced inaccurate staffing reports for the state, which resulted in payments $700,000 lower than they should have been for three years in a row. Cobb depicted the school as uncooperative, skipping meetings and training sessions with the district and producing mandatory state reports at the last minute, with inaccuracies that could not be addressed because staff couldn’t get calls returned.

“There’s been a human resources failure of the IAS leadership,” said John Adams, the deputy superintendent for human resources. Adams said his staff spent “hundreds” of hours researching the financial and other issues the school’s leaders raised. He said the school was blaming the district for its own mistakes.

David Robinson, a former member of the school’s board, described the vote as “tragic.” Yet he agrees with the decision because, he said, charter schools must be held accountable for their academic performance. He blames the school district for restricting access to funding, but he also blames the school itself.

Most parents shirked their volunteer responsibilities, he said, noting fewer than one in 10 showed up for Thursday’s meeting. He said the school’s board, from which he resigned a few years ago, had not held the administration accountable. “There was a lot of pontificating and a lot of excuses and not a lot of solutions,” Robinson said. “It was a perfect storm of incompetence, of apathy and of a lack of financial resources.”