Northwest Georgia Charter Academy Opening In 2026
Barring unforeseen issues, primarily at the state level, organizers of the Northwest Georgia Charter Academy plan to open the new public school in Cave Spring in August 2026. Originally, the Community Coalition and NW Georgia Charter Academy board were looking at the community building behind Fannin Hall, now the Cave Spring City Hall. Later, officials with the Georgia State Properties Commission gave the green light for negotiations to take over the Dillard building on the current Georgia School for the Deaf campus to house the school.
“It’s a wonderful, beautiful classroom building,” said Judy Taylor. “We actually started talking with GSD three years ago when we started down this journey.”
The call for the new school developed almost as soon as Floyd County School officials announced in January 2021 that the historic old Cave Spring Elementary School would be closed. The school was closed at the end of the 2021-22 school term. When school reopened in the late summer of 2022, approximately 160 youngsters from Cave Spring were sent either to the Pepperell district or the Coosa district, many of them leaving home way before sunrise and riding upwards of 15-20 miles to classes. Some parents even opted to carry their children across the state line, where they enrolled them in the Spring Garden, Alabama, schools.
The Cave Spring Community Coalition was formed even before the elementary school was closed to explore other opportunities for children in the Cave Spring area.
As organizers began to consider options for a new school, approximately 60 students were able to remain in the old school building and continue taking classes through the Georgia Cyber Academy.
As time passed, Judy Taylor, chair of the Community Coalition, and other volunteer leaders focused on the idea of creating a public charter school, a concept not altogether unusual in an era of growing calls for school choice. The group initially sought to become chartered under the Floyd County Schools umbrella, but the county school board rejected that idea. Taylor and the others then turned to the state charter school commission for sanction.
The state commission has approved the technical petition and has also completed the capacity review.
When the school opens in August 2026, it will accommodate 134 students in grades K–5, with one class per grade level. “The plan each year after is we will add a new grade, all the way up to 12,” said Dawn Williams, who will oversee the school. “In the last year of this charter, we will seek a new charter and begin to add second classes.” Williams retired as an administrator in the Rome City Schools, then took a teaching position at Coosa High School. “Definitely, that was a good refresher for me,” Williams said.
Students will come from Floyd and Polk counties. However, youngsters from across the line in Alabama will not be able to attend the charter school in Cave Spring.
“It’s all about culture and character as well.”
The academy will provide transportation that is similar to several of the private schools across the region, but remember, the charter academy will be a public school. At this point, the plan is to run a bus from a yet-to-be-located hub in Cedartown and one from Rome. More parents have signed petitions in support of the academy than the school can take in during its first year of operation.
“We don’t receive any local tax funds, “Taylor said. Public charter schools in Georgia are funded using the Quality Basic Education formula, just like traditional local public schools, but receive a slightly lower amount per student. There is also a state equalization grant that helps bring the per-student funding closer to the traditional amount. A nationwide movement supporting school choice will also make a variety of grants available to the NW Georgia Charter Academy.
The instructional model is called Expeditionary Learning; a nationwide model used in schools across Georgia that aligns with all Georgia performance standards. “It’s project-based learning,” Williams said. “It’s all about culture and character as well.” Williams said it is designed to develop habits of character in students when they are young and help them retain it as they progress from year to year. ”They learn good character, good ethics about being good servants in the community, which was another draw for me.” The school day will be slightly longer than the traditional elementary school day; however, within the day, there will be a little more time for recess and lunch.
The gated Georgia School for the Deaf campus will be a safe and secure environment that complies with all modern alert systems.
Ironically, the Rome-Floyd-Cave Spring Comprehensive 2040 plan, which has been adopted by Rome, Cave Spring, and Floyd County, includes a provision for the development of a public charter school and to better utilize the GSD campus.
The NW Georgia Charter Academy seems to be checking off both those boxes.
Future home of Public Charter School - on the campus of Georgia School for the Deaf.