A limited choice of high-performing public schools has prompted the cities of Edgewood and Belle Isle to collaborate on establishing a K-to-12 charter school in the adjacent area of Pine Castle. On Feb. 2nd, both cities decided to continue contract negotiations with Orange County Public Schools in order to open the charter school for the 2010 school year.
“It was a unanimous decision for us to explore the opportunity when it was presented to us,” said Judy Beardslee, Edgewood’s city council president.
The proposal for the charter school, which has been named Cornerstone Charter Academy, will be voted on by the OCPS Board in the coming weeks.
“We’re submitting contracts and there will be a review over the school in the next six weeks,” said Belle Isle mayor, Bill Brooks. “We expect to start enrolling students on March 6th.”
Cornerstone Charter Academy will be located at Pine Castle United Methodist Church and its enrollment will be between 700-750 students from kindergarten to 12th grade.
As a municipal school, Cornerstone Charter Academy will be supported by public funds. The school will also adhere to similar standards as other OCPS schools in regards to FCAT testing and curriculum.
Charter schools are different from public schools in that they offer more flexibility when it comes to a curriculum, specific teaching methods and disciplinary actions.
“We’ll have a stricter code of conduct, it will be more stringent than other schools in the area” Brooks said. “Parents will have to volunteer 30 hours of their time per student, per year. Students that come will have left another school to come to Cornerstone, so there probably won’t be a behavior with misbehaving students because they’ll want to be here.”
Brooks began considering the idea of creating a charter school when residents of Belle Isle voiced that they weren’t happen with the area’s public school options. With Edgewood facing similar problems, Brooks approached Edgewood mayor, Michael Teague, about forming a charter school for primarily students in the two cities and they quickly began the process of forming Cornerstone Christian Academy.
Attempts to reach Teague were unsuccessful. In a press release about the charter school, Teague did state that “the charter school planning came together so successfully because of enthusiastic support of the residents of both of our cities.”
The Edgewood City Council also heard regular complaints about poor public school choices for its residents, which is why the council collectively agreed to explore the addition of a charter school.
“There were a lot of concerns for the middle and high school options to our current districting,” Beardslee said. “With Oak Ridge (High School) and Walker (Middle School), the school board does the best with what it has to work with, but it’s not a perfect world.”
Oak Ridge is the only public high school that Edgewood is zoned for and it has scored either a ‘D’ or ‘F’ based on the FCAT grading system since 2000. According to Beardslee, the school’s poor performance also had a negative impact on Edgewood’s real estate market, but she expects Cornerstone Christian Academy to help improve property prices.
Not all have viewed the addition of the charter school as a good thing though. Joie Cadle, the Orange County school board president, allowed Cornerstone to come to fruition in a unanimous vote in October. However, she didn’t appreciate the inference that Oak Ridge was a detriment to the Edgewood and Belle Isle communities.
“I can’t speak to people’s perceptions,” Cadle said. “I can say that Oak Ridge is a fine school that offers different programs. It’s had some struggles but it’s a fine school.”
When asked what she thought of the communities searching for different education options, Cadle responded harshly.
“People do things for all different reasons. I really don’t want to comment on it.”
The Edgewood community will not see any tax increase as a result of the charter school as long as it regularly meets county expectations for FCAT scores. To Beardslee and the rest of the members of the Edgewood City Council, the opportunity to present its community with another academic option was worth any potential hurt feelings to the school board.
“I understand the dismay someone would feel when they hear derogatory comments [about their job.] But as local officials, it’s our job to maintain and increase ways of life and that’s hard to do without bothering someone.”
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