Muscogee County School Board hears plan to revise alternative education

A proposed plan designed to improve alternative education in the Muscogee County School District would close the Edgewood Student Services Center and reopen the vacant Marshall Middle School to create a learning center run by a private, for-profit company.

Superintendent David Lewis and his administration chiefs presented the plan to the Muscogee County School Board during a specially called meeting Thursday evening.

MCSD’s proposed one-year contract with Camelot Education of Austin, Texas, would be for $6.4 million and renewable for up to three years. Lewis wants the board to vote on the contract during its next meeting, March 27 at 6 p.m.

The Marshall Learning Center would house:

▪ The AIM program currently at Edgewood, serving students temporarily removed from their assigned school because of severe violations of the district’s behavior code. It would be called the Transitional School at Marshall.

▪ The Woodall Program currently housed at Davis Elementary School and Carver High School, serving students with severe emotional and behavioral problems. It would be called the Therapeutic Day School at Marshall.

▪ A new program called Excel Academy for over-age students who have fallen behind their peers.

▪ Catapult Academy, the dropout recovery program currently at Edgewood, would continue to be run by a separate contractor, not Camelot.

Monday, MCSD and seven other defendants were sued for $25 million in a personal injury complaint resulting from an incident in the AIM program at Edgewood. The lawsuit was filed in Muscogee County State Court on behalf of the Lawanda Thomas, the mother of Montravious Thomas, whose right leg was amputated below the knee after a contracted behavioral specialist with Mentoring & Behavioral Services of Columbus body-slammed the 13-year-old boy multiple times Sept. 12.

The Woodall Center is among the nine out of 24 facilities in the Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support that the state determined last year to be unfit for those programs. The MCSD board unanimously approved in August the superintendent’s recommendation to transfer the Woodall Program to Davis Elementary School, complying with the state’s order to immediately move those students from the Woodall Center because it was declared unsafe and unhealthy.

Click here for more details and reaction, including the response from the superintendent and a Camelot official about reported allegations of Camelot staffers being overly aggressive while disciplining students.

This story was originally published March 16, 2017 at 8:37 PM with the headline "Muscogee County School Board hears plan to revise alternative education."