Charter schools tend to tow a waiting list of prospective students and parents, and one in Greenwood probably wouldn't be any different, says an assistant attorney general who specializes in education.
"You'll have all the kids in the community wanting to go to that school," Richard Roberson said.
Finding the right adults in the community to support a charter-school effort, though, might not be such a cinch. That's a challenge the Greenwood-Leflore Advisory Group on Economics faces if it chooses to push a petition to establish a public school independent from local school district hegemony.
In a state that has only one charter school, GAGE members could have their work cut out for them.
First, they would have to draft a petition to present to the Greenwood School Board, which would then write an evaluation approving or rejecting the proposal. The petition is basically an application that must list a clear set of objectives ranging from an improvement plan to meet state testing standards to the relationship between the school and the local school district.
Regardless of how the local board decides, the last stop for the petition would be the state Board of Education, where most others have died.
"So it's difficult if not impossible to get one going," said Dr. E.M. Meek Jr., a Greenwood gynecologist and member of GAGE. "There are so many desks things have to get past for it to take place. Once one does get one going and it's successful, then it's something that's quite valuable."
Meek said he isn't sure if a charter school is the answer to GAGE's primary objective - improving what the group views is a substandard public education system - but it's worth a try.
"I don't know if I support it," he said. "I'm in favor of looking at it."
When the state enacted its charter school law in 1997, it allowed for six of the schools - one in each congressional district that existed then and an extra one for the Delta. Only four charter school petitions have ever made their way to the state Board of Education, two of them from Sturgis in Oktibbeha County.
The only group to succeed in convincing the board to grant charter status was one from the Hayes Cooper Center for Math, Science and Technology in Merigold, which was already a magnet school.
Charter-school advocates say the low volume of charter solicitations has more to do with the inflexibility of the state law than a lack of interest in the concept.
Mississippi's charter law, which was established in 1997, follows a "conversion model," limiting the designation to existing public school buildings. That restriction is the most common reason there aren't more charter schools in the state, Roberson said.
"In other states, a charter school can be what's called a start-up school, without being an existing school," he said.
For a charter school to come to be, the conversion model requires cooperation between the school districts who own the buildings and the citizens who want to take them over. Such an exchange is rare, according Hayes Cooper Principal Beverly Hardy, who says the initiatives often put school districts on the defensive.
"It's a turf war kind of, to be honest with you," said Hardy. "If you've got a superintendent who has confidence in people doing it and doesn't see it as a threat, then it will work."
There's also not much financial incentive to establish a charter school in Mississippi. Other states maintain a pot of millions of dollars in start-up funds, but Mississippi schools have to get their hands on private grants and federal money if they want any major financial support beyond their share of the local district's money.
"Since there's no money in it, no one's applying anymore unless there's a major problem with the district," Hardy said.
When the Merigold school applied for charter status, it did it for the money, she said. "That's the reason we became interested in it, because there was supposed to be such a large piece of the pie there, but that never came through."
Instead, the school found a three-year $150,000 federal grant to get started. GAGE member Robert Hardin says there is also a wealth of private endowments for charter schools, more than $65 million by his estimates.
"If there is a degree of cooperation to develop a charter school, we more than likely will be able to receive funding from one of the philanthropic sources in this country to the tune of several million dollars," Hardin said. "There's going to be bucks to this."
To satisfy the conversion model, Hardin says, GAGE has brought up what many consider to be the obvious choice in the Greenwood district for charter status - the superior-rated Bankston Elementary, where proven performance and somewhat of a racial balance already exist.
Hardin has also mentioned Davis Elementary. The school is in somewhat of a race-neutral area, a block from the Greenwood-Leflore Public Library, and it's a historical building near downtown, where a revitalization effort has already taken hold.
"It would be interesting to go along with that element that's happening downtown," Hardin said.
But it isn't known whether Greenwood Public Schools shares that opinion. Hardin is skeptical.
"Whether they cooperate and join in on the effort to create a better system or at least create a system that is for all practical purposes whole, that's the question: Will they do it?" he asked.
At the moment, school board members are reserving their stance until a charter-school movement crops up. John Johnson, the school board's president, said the topic has not come up at recent meetings.
"We have not discussed that anymore, and we have not heard from GAGE in a while," he said.
A common argument against charter schools is that they leave behind the public school children who don't get to attend them. Meek says no segment of Greenwood's population will be left out of any ideas GAGE pursues.
"It's not just enough for some people up in North Greenwood to get their way and have a K-through-12 school just for them," he said. "It should be that the entire community comes together and looks at the issue together."
Even without support from the local school board, GAGE could proceed to the state level and seek a charter from the Board of Education.
Greenwood attorney Charlie Deaton, who serves as chairman of the state Board of Education, said the success of charter school petitions depends on "whether everybody in the effort is in agreement."
He wouldn't say how an effort from Greenwood would be received.
"I haven't reviewed one in probably two years, so I wouldn't want to get speculative," Deaton said.
But if Hayes Cooper is any indication, an adversarial relationship between the petitioners and the district wouldn't impress the state Board of Education.
The petition to get charter status for the Merigold school was a concerted effort, according to teachers, administrators and parents in the Cleveland School District. And from what they say about the school's history, Hayes Cooper had been a concerted effort long before it became a charter school.
"I'm not sure why Hayes Cooper was granted a charter and other schools weren't, other than our support base was incredible and because of our scholastic record and achievement record," said one of the school's teachers, Patsy Reese.
