Staff Writer

The Jonesville-Lockhart Charter School has received permission to open next year.

Organizers received a conditional charter for a K-12 school Thursday from the S.C. Public Charter School District. The school joins a Clarendon County vocational academy as being the first two schools in the state to receive a charter.

A public charter school is a public school financed through the charter school district. It is tuition-free and governed by a board elected by the parents and staff.

The decision clears the way for the school to be organized and built, students enrolled, and classes to begin in July 2008.

A nine-member school board has also been appointed, comprised of Mark Sanders, vice chairman of the charter school's planning committee; Dawn Gault and Dr. Lance Miller of Jonesville; Shirley Cromer, Eddie Burnette and Rhonda Lindler of Lockhart; Marion Eison of Kelton; Cherokee County educator LaTunya Means; and Bryan Stone, general manager of Lockhart Power Co.

Sanders said first school board election will be held in January 2009.

“The law allows - for continuity's sake - for us to have a board that is not elected at a standard time,” he said. “After year one, it will be in September of each year that parents will have the opportunity to pick a board.”

While an exact number for enrollment is unknown, Sanders said the school is shooting for a student body of roughly 800. During a public meeting last Saturday, Sanders said that some 700 families from Union, Cherokee, York and Spartanburg counties had expressed an interest in enrolling their children in the school.

State law permits the local school district to appeal the issuance of a charter within 45 days if it determines the charter school will have an adverse impact on its functions. Union County School District Superintendent Dr. David Eubanks said the district will review the law and the pertinent information and decide whether an appeal would be appropriate.

That information would include the number of students currently enrolled in the district's schools that would be transferring to the charter school. Regardless of whether it files an appeal, Eubanks said the district would like a list of the students to be enrolled in the charter school to help with budgeting for the 2007-2008 school year.

“We now need to know the numbers of students by name so that we can plan accordingly as we begin the budget preparation cycle which generally begins in January,” he said. “We need name and location for purposes of planning for the next school year.

“For instance, if there are a hundred students in a particular grade level in particular school and we lose 20 that would indicate that we would need one less staff member teaching at that grade level,” he said. “The biggest thing here is that it's going to necessitate a closer look at our staffing so that we can make adjustments accordingly.”

Sanders said that as a condition of its charter certification, the committee agreed to provide demographic information on its student body to any district from which students are drawn. He said that information will be provided once enrollment process is completed in February. Students are now in the pre-enrollment phase where their families have expressed an interest in their attending the school but have not formally enrolled them.

The district placed some conditions on its approval of the charter including enrollment. If the conditions aren't met the opening of the school could be delayed and the board would be forced to resubmit its application.

“Those conditions are primarily that we meet enrollment figures and that we proceed on schedule for obtaining facilities; it's everything we have to do anyway” Sanders said. “The ball is in our court but we are a legal entity now and we must meet those conditions and I'm confident we will.”

Another condition relates to facilities. The new school will be located in the Kelton area. Sanders declined to reveal the exact location because negotiations with the owners are still underway, but he did say that plans are for construction to begin this spring.

Temporary structures, such as modular units, will be used to house classrooms. The campus would be designed to leave room for expansion and replace the temporary structures with permanent ones.

Sanders said that one of the first steps the board will take will be to apply for a $420,000 Planning and Implementation grant. If its application is approved, the school would receive $20,000 up front and then $200,000 a year for the next two years. The money is used for start-up costs including equipment purchases. The application must be submitted before the end of December.

Union County School Board chairman B. J. McMorris said she didn't know what impact the charter school will have on the district, but she hopes the first priority of all will be educating the children.

“It's just a wait and see situation at present,” she said. “I don't have anything against the charter school at all. My conclusion is that I just want every child to get an education regardless of whether it's at a charter school, private school or at home. I hope that we can all get along and put the children's education first.”

A committee of 60 people from the Jonesville and Lockhart areas formed six months ago to explore the possibility of a charter school after Union County school trustees voted to close Jonesville and Lockhart high schools and consolidate them with Union High School. The new school was renamed Union County High School.