Southern Pines Pilot: Academy of Moore County, a Shanahan Law Group client, prevails in battle

Academy Prevails in Battle

Aug. 19, the first day of school at The Acad-emy of Moore County will mean a lot more to students, parents and staff.

The charter school resolved its case with the State Board of Education on Wednesday, a day before mediation talks were scheduled to begin between the two parties.

The school must meet specific academic benchmarks over the next year to have its charter renewed for another four years, according to Kieran Shanahan, a Raleigh attorney who represents The Academy of Moore County.

The school must either meet the annual expected growth criteria determined by the state ABCs of Public Education or achieve at least 70th percentile proficiency on end-of-grade test scores. The Academy has to meet only one of these benchmarks in the next year to renew its charter.

“If they meet the criteria, then they’ll be good to go,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan said the agreement allows the school and the State Board of Education to move forward with a shared understanding of what is best for students at the Academy.

“It really puts the Department of Public Instruction and the school on the same sheet of music, and that is educating these kids in the best possible manner,” Shanahan said. “We’re delighted for the resolution, and I know The Academy is very pleased to have this matter put behind them.”

Shanahan said the language of the agreement has been finalized and approved by both the State Board of Education and The Academy of Moore County, but the document needs signatures from both parties before it can go public.

“Everyone’s agreed,” Shanahan said. “It was just a matter of getting the signatures on paper.”

He said the document should be released by Monday at the latest.

Academy board member Walter Bennett said he thinks the agreement was a reasonable compromise.

“I think what we came up with was fair to us and to them,” Bennett said. “They don’t like it. After all, we challenged them, and we won. We would have been shut down a month ago if things hadn’t happened this way. Nobody likes to be challenged.”

Last March, the State Board of Education voted not to renew the school’s charter, citing poor academic performance.

Parents of students at The Academy of Moore County, along with the school’s faculty, protested the board’s decision, saying it was based on poor test scores from previous years.

During the appeals process, Allyson Schoen, director of education at The Academy, constantly reiterated that the school has made significant improvements in its academic performance and met its expected growth each year since the implementation of a corrective action plan with the N.C. Office of Charter Schools in 2008.

The school has met both federal Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and the state’s expected growth goals for the past two years.

During a hearing in June, Administrative Law Judge Fred Morrison Jr. granted a stay on the state board’s decision, which allowed The Academy of Moore County to remain open for the 2010-2011 year. Without the stay, the school would have been closed June 30.

Bennett said this year’s preliminary end-of-grade test scores showed significant growth from the previous year despite the controversy surrounding the school.

“Against all that background, we achieved a little bit over the 70 percent benchmark, with 70 percent of our kids at grade level,” he said. “That’s outstanding, but that’s just an indication of how dug in our people are and how concerned they are with doing the right job.”

This year’s proficiency scores are a significant increase from last year’s rating of 46.1 percent of students at or above grade level.

Bennett said the last few months of school were difficult for everyone as the appeals process began.

“It’s been disruptive because our teachers didn’t know if they were going to be having a job ongoing,” he said. “Our kids’ parents didn’t know if they were going to have a place to keep their kids. That’s very disruptive.”

Bennett said he is glad that the entire school community can get back to focusing on its main goal — serving the students.

“All we care about is getting the job done for the kids,” he said.