Just minutes away from the proposed site of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School is the internationally known HGTV Green Home 2012.  In June, HGTV will giveaway their 2012 Green Home which is located in the famous 1000 acre Atlanta community of Serenbe.  Serenbe just like the model of Chattahoochee Hills Charter School is based on the traditional values and the principals of environmental sustainability. 

Beginning Friday, May 4th, The HGTV Green home in Serenbe opens to the public. You can tour the beautifully decorated Farmhouse that sets standards for Green Living.  The cost for tours is $20 and can be visited through June 24th, between the hours of 11am-7pm. IT IS CLOSED ON MONDAYS. Graciously, Serenbe has offered to donate all tour proceeds to 3 wonderful community non-profits, Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, The Serenbe Institute, and Chattahoochee Hills Brickworks. CHCS would like to invite you out to visit the Green Home and thanks the public and Serenbe for their contributions.

We are back at work! Currently we are working with the Fulton County School Board and the State to make every effort to open our doors in August of 2013. Please check back in late April or early May as we anticipate more information from Fulton County about our petition. 

Our plan the first year of operation at Chattahoochee Hills Charter School is a K-5 school with future plans of becoming a K-8 school by our fourth year of operation (2016-17.) The original plan of expanding one grade per year continues to look realistic. By that year (2016-17) we will be a K-8 public charter school. Our goal is to achieve national recognition for excellence in student achievement through an engaging learning environment that helps families grow, learn and excel - together. If you would like to be a part of our dream, we’d love you to join us!

We will keep you up to date with the latest information. Thank you again for your support.

Let me catch you up in case you have some questions about what is taking place with CHCS. Our original plan of opening this past school year was stopped in May of 2011 because the Supreme Court of Georgia ruled that the way charter schools in our state were funded was unconstitutional. We were one of many other state charter schools effected by this ruling. Our school leaders have since been doing everything possible to make CHCS possible and we will not give up. 

Future Plans of Opening are tentatively being discussed for August 2013. Although this news may seam discouraging, it has some great advantages too. Once again, this decision was out of our control. We encourage you not to give up and please continue to support Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, we do appreciate every effort you give to CHCS.

Our mission has remained, our obstacles were altered, but our passion has strengthened. Please check back regularly and visit our news update section to take a look at our news, letters from our Chairman, and a past timeline of events. Thank you for checking back for updates. 

Welcome! We have news since the Supreme Court ruling last year. Please read the letter of our last update from our CHCS Chairman below. The Chattahoochee Hills Charter School, located in South Fulton County is integrating the arts, agriculture, and environmental education into an exciting experientially-based school in Chattahoochee Hills just south of Atlanta, Georgia.

We are now making an all out effort to open our doors in August of 2012. If you would like to be a part of our dream, we’d love to have you!

(Here is the Letter for the News Update)

Dear CHCS Friends, Leaders & Parents,
In spite of the setback brought on by this year's Supreme Court decision, we believe the revised goal of opening a school in fall 2012 is a realistic one. (Read more about last year's court ruling and how it impacted us here.)

We want to update you on our progress towards this goal:
CHCS leadership has met with Fulton County's charter liaison and superintendent -- both expressed their support for us in reapplying.
Fulton County's charter application is expected to be available this month. At that time, we will formally petition the County to allow us to reapply.
The next step will be submitting the application to FCS by the deadline, which is expected to be in March 2012. Once this is done, we will work with the county toward a decision on our petition that will likely happen in April or May.
The main question most parents have is, "Will CHCS be open next fall?" We are certainly hopeful that we will be able to answer that question with a yes. But as we have learned over the past year, there are quite a few variables, many of them out of our control, that contribute to that answer. We can assure you that as soon as we have a definitive answer to that question, we will communicate it immediately.

We continue to need your support and will be rallying volunteers for specific tasks soon.

Stay in touch with us via our website: http://www.chatthillscharter.org/
and Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/chatthillscharterschool

Sincerely,

John Reid, chairman of CHCS board of directors

To CHCS leaders, friends, and parents:

The Chattahoochee Hills Charter School (CHCS) Board met tonight in a special session to consider the impact on CHCS of the decision announced by the Georgia Supreme Court on Monday. In that decision, the Court decided 4-3 to rule that the State Commission, that granted our charter, was essentially unconstitutional. There is wide consensus that - because of this ruling - all Charters granted by the Commission, including our own, would essentially be ruled null and void.

In spite of this dire outcome, and out of an abundance of caution, the Board reviewed any and all possible options to preserve the school's plan to open in the Fall of 2011. We regret to inform you that we have identified no viable options at this time. Because of this, and to give parents as much time to plan as possible, we are announcing tonight a delay of the opening of CHCS to Fall 2012. The opening of CHCS in Fall 2012 will depend on assurances from funders and clarifications of our rights to open under Georgia Law. We hope to be able to have these assurances and clarifications by January 2012. The school that we open in Fall, 2012 will be K-6, consistent with our plan.

To our families who have been so steadfast in support of this exciting school concept, we thank you for your patience during this difficult legal review. The ruling by the court had nothing whatsoever to do with our educational concept for our children and everything to do with constitutional technicalities about county and state rights. Indeed, we believe in our educational concept more than ever, and hope that you do too. Accordingly, we want to ask for your further patience while the state puts new processes in place that respond to the Supreme Court's concerns and while the County reconsiders its position. We believe that your voice matters in this regard. Please let your county and state legislators and the Governor know how you feel.

For our part, we pledge to keep you advised as we learn more; and we assure you that your application for enrollment of your child will take priority before new applications after this date are considered.

To clarify as much as possible for you and your family, Duke Bradley, our Principal, and the CHCS Board plan to host a special information session at the Chattahoochee Hills City Hall at 6505 Rico Road at 4:00 p.m. this Sunday, May 22nd.

We hope you can join us there.

Sincerely,

John C. Reid, Chair
Chattahoochee Hills Charter School