Want to tour a Camelot school? Here’s your chance to gain clarity amid controversy

If you want to visit one of the schools operated by the alternative education company the Muscogee County School Board is considering to hire, then here is your most convenient chance before the board votes on the controversial proposal.

Camelot Education, the private, for-profit company based in Austin, Texas, recommended by Muscogee County School District superintendent David Lewis to run three alternative education programs for $6.4 million annually, will provide a tour Monday at Camelot Academy of Escambia County, in Pensacola, Fla., MCSD announced Wednesday evening.

The bus is scheduled to leave the Muscogee County Public Education Center, 2960 Macon Road, at 7 a.m. Monday and return to the same location by 5 p.m.

Seats are available to the first 30 folks who make a reservation and receive confirmation from MCSD Student Services Division secretary Jackie Mosley, 706-748-3217, by the deadline of noon Friday, May 12. Confirmed riders must check in Monday outside MCPEC’s front entrance by 6:30 a.m., according to MCSD’s news release.

The news release doesn’t say whether and how much money riders would be charged, but MCSD communications director Valerie Fuller told the Ledger-Enquirer in an email Thursday, “There is no cost for those who sign up.”

Camelot partners with nearly 250 school districts across 43 campuses in six states. Pensacola is its closest site to Columbus. MCSD would be the first school district in Georgia to hire Camelot.

Camelot Academy of Escambia County is a transitional school for students removed from their assigned school because of discipline violations. It’s one of the three programs envisioned for MCSD. The other two are a therapeutic day school for students with severe emotional or behavioral disorders and an accelerated school for over-age and under-accredited students.

An hour after the bus is expected to return, the school board’s monthly meeting is scheduled to start in MCPEC Monday at 6 p.m.

District 8 representative Frank Myers, who opposes hiring Camelot, said during the board’s May 8 work session he would make a motion at Monday night’s action meeting to reconsider tabling the recommendation. Such a motion must be made by one of the five board members who voted April 10 to table the decision for three months: Myers, John Thomas of District 2, Vanessa Jackson of District 3, Naomi Buckner of District 4 and vice chairwoman Kia Chambers, the nine-member board’s lone countywide representative.

Chambers made the tabling motion to give board members and residents more time to learn about Camelot and the proposal, plus form a citizens advisory committee, which hasn’t been done.

Chairwoman Pat Hugley Green of District 1, Laurie McRae of District 5 and Cathy Williams of District 7 voted against tabling the recommendation. Mark Cantrell of District 6 was absent then.

If the board does indeed put the recommendation back on the agenda, it would need a separate vote to hire Camelot.

This story was originally published May 10, 2017 at 11:22 PM with the headline "Want to tour a Camelot school? Here’s your chance to gain clarity amid controversy."