Sunday, July 5, 2015

Chesnut Elementary Parents in Dunwoody are exploring the renewal of the DeKalb County School Charter - two meetings this week.

I am a current Chesnut Charter Elementary School parent and have been almost continuously since 2004 when my now 15 year old son entered Kindergarten.   The school is a wonderful learning environment with caring teachers and a dedicated cadre of parents who volunteer on a regular basis to allow the teachers and the administration to be focused providing the quality education. 

The school has been a DeKalb County Conversion Charter for much of that time but it appears that the rules are changing and the odds of renewal by DeKalb are slim, as the renewal would also now authorize the School Governing Board (Parents and Teachers) to have a level of control that the entrenched DeKalb bureaucracy does not want to let go of.

I fully support Chesnut's effort for renewal for many reasons and hope that the meeting rooms are packed with parents to help push this initiative forward.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, John, for posting. As a member of the "old guard" who watched over our charter, I can say I am SO AMAZED by the awesome work of the "new guard". It's true that the conversion charter environment is very tough these days - IMO DeKalb is making it far harder than it should be. For this reason, it's truly going to take a BIG village to make this happen. On the flip side, the potential for self-governance at the school is a huge plus! I hope these meeting are packed with parents coming to see if they can play a part, big or small, in the charter effort!

John Heneghan said...

The time for the July 9 meeting at the Columns at Lake Ridge had to be pushed up to 6:30 pm due to a scheduling conflict. Pizza will be provided. We apologize for any inconvenience. (The time for the DNDC meeting remains unchanged)

Thanks

Chesnut Charter Parent Teacher Council