Cartersville City Schools Awarded Charter Status

The Cartersville City School System has been granted "System Charter" status by the Georgia Department of Education for 5 school years beginning in 2010-11. The school system began the process of applying to the DOE in spring 2009 and was granted approval in summer 2010.  The application has been reviewed and scrutinized by the DOE, the State's Charter Advisory Board, as well as the SBOE.  "It was a long and tedious process; but one that we certainly feel ultimately will benefit our school system and the students we serve."  Cartersville City joins eight other Georgia school systems as a Charter System.

The flexibility granted to the system in its application focuses largely on the scheduling of students, class size issues, and funding.  The State Board recently gave relief to all school systems across the state by allowing local boards to set class size limits for the next three years because of current financial challenges.  "It goes beyond just setting an upper limit for setting class size.  How you group and schedule students makes a tremendous difference when you are serious about doing what is best for each individual student.  The system's motto is 'Making it Personal.'  The flexibility granted under the Charter will allow Cartersville City to take that philosophy even further in striving to help each student achieve."

The Charter agreement with the state will run for the next five school years (2011-2015) and has annual targeted achievement objectives for each of the four schools.  The Charter goals and annual targets are already included in the System Strategic Plan which will be placed on the school system web site in the next few weeks.

Click here to view the Charter Contract