Walton charter renewal; Lassiter, Wheeler projects on Cobb school board agenda

The Cobb Board of Education Thursday will be asked to renew the charter status of Walton High School and fund major renovations at Lassiter and Wheeler high schools.

Those agenda items will be presented for discussion at a work session that begins at 12 p.m. and will be voted on at a 7 p.m. business meeting.

An executive session follows the work session. Agendas for the public meetings can be found by clicking here.

The meetings take place in the board room at the Cobb County School District central office (514 Glover Street, Marietta).

The open meetings also will be live-streamed on the Cobb County School District’s BoxCast channel and on CobbEdTV, Comcast Channel 24.

Walton is officially a “conversion” charter school—it opened in 1975 as a traditional school, then converted to a charter school in 1998.

Charter status gives Walton more flexibility in parental governance and curriculum. Walton routinely is near the top in Georgia in standardized testing results and other academic performance metrics, and offers a wide range of Advanced Placement, honors and college preparatory courses.

Although the state of Georgia doesn’t allow conversion charter schools any longer, those that still remain must renew those charters every five years.

The school board agenda item said that this will be the fifth five-year charter for Walton, which has used that status to implement the Walton Enrichment Block program, an International Spanish Academy, a STEM Academy and other programs.

“The autonomy the charter has allowed has been most influential in the curriculum we provide,” according to the renewal application submitted by the Walton Governance Board in September (you can read it here).

“Walton has been able to expand and reorganize the state standards to best serve our students, focusing on critical thinking and deep understanding.”

The agenda item states that 99 percent of Walton’s teachers and 99 percent of parents who responded to a survey about the charter approved renewal.

Also on Thursday’s agenda is a request to spend nearly $16 million in Cobb ED-SPLOST V revenues for theatre modifications at Lassiter High School.

The Cobb school board last fall approved spending $365,000 for architectural design for the project, which includes an expansion of the present facility, along with general upgrades and renovations.

The expected completion time for the work is this December, according to an agenda item.

Another agenda item requests nearly $5 million for classroom renovations and parking improvements, also from SPLOST V collections, at Wheeler.

The renovations are slated for the school’s STEM magnet program building and are expected to be done by this July, with the parking changes slated for completion by July 2024.

At the Thursday evening board meeting, recognitions include state high school swimming champion athletes from Walton and Lassiter.

Also to be recognized is Krista Lewis of Shallowford Falls Elementary School, who was recently named the Georgia art educator of the year.

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