School board to vote on paying private contractor to run alternative ed program

The Muscogee County School Board is expected to vote Monday night on whether to hire Camelot Education to operate a learning center in an effort to improve alternative education.

The board meeting is at 6 p.m. in the Muscogee County Public Education Center on Macon Road.

Camelot is a private, for-profit company from Austin, Texas.

The plan proposed by superintendent David Lewis calls the closing of the Edgewood Student Services Center and the reopening of the vacant Marshall Middle School.

The Marshall Learning Center would house the AIM program, currently at Edgewood, serving students temporarily removed from their school because of severe violations of the district’s behavior code.

Also housed there would be the Woodall Program, currently housed at Davis Elementary School and Carver High School, serving students with severe emotional and behavioral problems.

There will be a new program call Excel Academy for over-age students to have fallen behind their peers and also the Catapult Academy, the dropout recovery program currently at Edgewood.

Catapult would not be run by Camelot.

Camelot is a provider of educational services with 43 schools in six states. The one-year contract would be for $6.4 million and renewable for up to three years.

Lewis believes the MCSD, Camelot partnership will strengthen and increase services for students.

In other business:

▪ The board is being asked to approve a contract with Rose Hill Redevelopment for the sale of the property located at 435 21st Street former home of the Rose Hill Center. The sale price is $535,000.

▪ The board will vote on whether to approve River City Contracting as construction manager at Risk for construction of the autism center at Double Churches Middle School.

▪ Approval to sell 42 school buses, all of which have experienced significant mechanical problems, is being asked of the board.

▪ The board will meet in executive session for a student discipline appeal.

This story was originally published March 26, 2017 at 12:43 PM with the headline "School board to vote on paying private contractor to run alternative ed program."