Albany Herald

ALBANY -- The Dougherty County School System's new College and Career Academy took yet another step toward reality Wednesday when the charter school's executive steering committee named its initial officers and proposed setting up three new committees to help guide the start-up process.

Bobby McKinney was named the executive steering committee chair, Tim Knowles and Angie Barber were named vice chairs, and Barbara Rivera Holmes was selected as the group's secretary.

The executive steering committee also recommended the establishment of three committees and subcommittees:

n Needs Assessment Committee, which will decide what data need to be gathered from local employers and other sources to compare to student interest data;

n Fundraising Committee, which will consider creating a nonprofit 501(c)(3) with its own board to oversee the acquisition and use of private assets. This board can later become the charter school's governing board.

n Charter Authoring Committee, which will use the needs data and other resources to come up with the mission, vision, goals and a business plan for the school.

This committee will use this information to fill in the prompts in the state's charter application. The charter will then be presented to the full committee for approval and comment before sending it to the DCSS Board of Education for approval. The charter will then be sent to the state BOE.

The Charter committee will have three subcommittees: curricula, accountability and operations.

The new school received a boost recently when the local BOE added $4 million in funding to the upcoming STEPIII budget, which will be voted upon on Nov. 8.

That money, when coupled with a $3 million state grant, will provide $7 million in seed money for the nascent school.