More than half of the teachers at Atlanta’s Thomasville Heights Elementary School were absent Friday, the day after school superintendent Meria Carstarphen announced plans to bring in a charter school group to operate it next school year.
Under that plan, all teachers would have to re-apply for their jobs. Those not selected could apply for other vacancies in the district.
Seventeen of Thomasville’s 29 teachers were out Friday.
“I want to give people the benefit of the doubt,” Carstarphen said Friday afternoon, but that number of absences is unusual. APS will investigate and deal with anything “inappropriate” through the human resources department, she said.
The absent teachers were replaced with central office staff — including associate superintendents — and two substitute teachers, APS spokeswoman Jill Strickland said.
Thomasville Heights in southeast Atlanta would be part of a set of dramatic changes Carstarphen proposed. Those changes are intended to improve some of the city’s worst schools ahead of potential state takeover if Gov. Nathan Deal’s Opportunity School District plan is approved by voters in November.
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Thomasville Heights, which received an “F” rating from the state for three years in a row, is one of about two dozen Atlanta schools that could be subject to state takeover under Deal’s plan.
It would be one of five schools put under the management of charter-school groups under Carstarphen’s proposal, which also calls for closing one school and merging four others.
Purpose Built Schools, a partner to Drew Charter School in east Atlanta, would work with Thomasville Heights and three other APS schools: Slater Elementary School, Price Middle School and Carver High School. The work at Thomasville Heights would start in 2016-17, with the other schools following in the coming years.
On Friday afternoon, some parents at Thomasville Heights were unaware of the plans for their school.
But Katina Aaron, whose daughter attends the school, said the idea of changes at the school sounded good to her.
“The kids here need the extra help,” she said.
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