It’s no surprise that Clearwater, home to a Greek-American community that prides itself on preserving its traditions, has a charter school themed around Greek language and culture.
The aptly named Athenian Academy is now located on Hercules Avenue and has been in operation for 16 years. Its website shows students dressed in ancient Greek-style costumes while celebrating the Olympics.
The academy bills itself as the “first Greek immersion charter school in the United States.”
The seemingly successful school seems like a natural fit there. The campus is just a few miles from Tarpon Springs, famous for its Greek restaurants and churches, sponge markets, and boats with sponge divers in old-fashioned diving suits.
This attracts tourists and proves that maintaining traditions can be good for the economy as well as the sense of community.
But surprisingly, Athenian Academy trustees requested permission to open a tax-funded charter school in Sarasota County.
The question isn’t just why here. There are also doubts about whether this school can become a chain business.
Sarasota County School Board members had clearly begun wondering about this even before Athens Academy administrators arrived late for their Sept. 20 bid meeting. School system staff had already noticed numerous gaps in the application. Overall, it did not meet the requirements.
Clearwater School Principal Kathy Hershelman tried to convince the school board that this was largely because she was new to writing charter applications.
There are many reasons to doubt this proposition, and some have nothing to do with the obvious proposition: How many people in Sarasota are interested in a Greek immersion school for their children? But when board members asked why on earth they chose Sarasota, it became clear that the answer had nothing to do with the demographics of the area, nor with any awareness of the educational needs of this area. region.
Hershelman said the idea came from investors connected to the Clearwater school.
“Investors found property here in Sarasota and asked us” to consider building a school at a location they had chosen on Beneva Road, she said.
And no, Sarasota does not have a real concentration of Greek-Americans.
“It’s not a big Greek community,” she admitted.
After further questioning, the applicants explained that the site popular with investors had turned out to be unsuitable. They said investors were now looking at other possible properties.
For obvious reasons, this did not impress school board members as an inspiring or idealistic explanation for the creation of such a charter school – or any other charter school.
Did you choose Sarasota, said longtime board member Shirley Brown, simply because a developer pressured you to do so?
“Have you looked at our schools? Have you visited our schools. Have you done a study? » asked Brown. “What due diligence did you do to say we were a good fit?” »
Good questions, but there were no good answers, except that the school was also considering teaching Spanish.
But I think the board missed a question. As far as I can tell, school board members haven’t asked about a huge name case that fell on page 103 of the application, which lists people who support the academy. It says:
“Former Governor Charlie “Christodoulou” (Crist), Chancellor of Athens Academy Charter School; the head of the ceremony.
Really? Is Crist, sometimes a Republican, sometimes a Democrat, currently running for Congress and known for his Greek family heritage, the chancellor?
Well no. Apparently not.
I contacted Crist’s campaign about this.
A campaign spokesperson responded: “Gov. Crist has absolutely no connection to this charter school.
But what do I know? Perhaps there is an old Greek custom that you can become chancellor without anyone telling you.
— Tom Lyons can be contacted at tom.lyons@heraldtribune.com
