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Clarke BOE will discuss privatizing SOAR school

Clarke County school board members tonight will discuss a plan to hand the district's punitive alternative school over to a private company - a move school officials say would save $1.5 million but also allow the successful Classic City High School to move into a new, intown facility sooner.
Superintendent Philip Lanoue has recommended closing the punitive school, SOAR Academy, and hiring a private company to run a program for those students.
► Click here to read Lanoue's recommendation
But the Clarke County School District already is in the midst of an $18 million plan to renovate and expand facilities on the H.T. Edwards campus near downtown. The first phase of that project - new buildings for SOAR Academy and for the school district's early childhood center - was to be completed by summer. Come fall, the district was to begin renovating the old H.T. Edwards building into space for Classic City and a new Athens Community Career Academy.
►Click here to read the proposal
If the district closes the punitive alternative school, the 20 classrooms in the SOAR building may go to Classic City as early as this summer, Lanoue suggested in his recommendation to the school board.
"The important thing is the building that we're constructing now is a classroom building with space that's easily adaptable," said Ted Gilbert, assistant superintendent for district services. "As the direction changes, we'll take a look and see how we need to adapt, if at all."
While students are assigned to SOAR Academy when they break se

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