Heron Bay Academy,  the proposed charter school to be built in the Heron Bay Golf & Country Club community, was recently denied its petition to become a charter school in the fall of 2010. However, supporters of the school are not giving up. Although the Griffin-Spalding School Board and Henry County Board of Education turned down the school’s petition, both commented on the strength and innovation of the school’s curriculum.

Supporters of the Academy recently submitted a petition to the newly created Georgia Charter School Commission on August 1. An answer on whether the charter will be approved is expected in December 2009. The (more…)

Yesterday, Helen and I attended the Georgia Charter Schools Conference. We learned that charter schools are public schools that operate with freedom from many of the regulations that apply to traditional public schools. The type of charter established depends on the particular school’s mission, program, goals, students served, methods of assessment, and ways to measure success. While charter schools operate separate from public schools, they are part of the local public education system, so are tuition free and offer specialized curricula in a more efficient manner than other public schools and set an exemplary standard of student achievement. Helen and I are interested in only the best for Spalding and Haley, so we wanted to see what we could learn from this presentation. We are excited to send our little fledglings to the proposed charter school at Heron Bay, Heron Bay Academy, when it opens.

The session we attended, “Green Schools: Dollars and Cents” made a lot of sense to us! The presentation was given by Stacy Patton who is with Minerva Properties, the developer of Heron Bay Golf and Country Club, and who is overseeing the planning of the proposed charter school that will soon serve Heron Bay. She talked about the benefits of a charter school from the perspective of the developer (which was quite interesting) as well as the importance of a charter school to a community like Heron Bay.

In her presentation, she discussed why going green makes sense financially for both the school and community. Ms. Patton seemed to be very interested and passionate about environmental issues. I know someone who would love to talk to this smart woman – my budding environmentalist, Haley, who is very passionate about going green.

She gave her presentation with Tom Sayre with Sizemore Group, who added a lot of interesting material about architecture and urban design elements.

Helen and I left the conference feeling more confident and knowledgeable about sending our kids to Heron Bay Academy and are very excited about the diverse curriculum and academic excellence that a charter school can offer. For more information about the proposed charter school at Heron Bay, I encourage you to learn all about it at www.heronbayacademy.org.

Anyone planning on attending the Georgia Charter School Conference next week must make sure to put the “Green Schools Dollars and Sense” breakout session on their schedule. Stacy Patton is one of the speakers at this exceptional seminar and is going to represent Minerva Properties extremely well – in case you don’t know, Minerva is the developer of Heron Bay Golf and Country Club. Her breakout session is scheduled for Thursday, February 26th from 12:15 p.m. to 1:15 p.m. It’s definitely a dynamic session that will include discussions on the significance of Charter Schools from the perspective of a developer. In addition,  “Green Schools Dollars and Sense” will engage the audience (more…)