Principal Pick, Charter School on Board Agenda

The appointment of a new principal for  is on the agenda for Thursday night's Cobb Board of Education meeting, 

Superintendent Michael Hinojosa recently appointed Rick Beaulieu an assistant area superintendent for the .

The meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the school district board room, located at 514 Glover Street in Marietta, with an executive session slated for 6 p.m. 

The school board is also expected to approve the renewal of charter school status for  in East Cobb. 

But another charter petition figures to be the most hotly contested item on the agenda.

Supporters of the proposed Smyrna Academy of Excellence are upset by Hinojosa's continued objections. SAE would be a K-12 charter school serving the South Cobb area, with an emphasis on a science, technology and mathematics curriculum. 

Janet Rau, the interim leader of the school, told on Wednesday that "if this charter doesn’t get through, if we don’t get approved as a charter, I don’t see how any charter school could possibly go through Cobb County. We really need to have people out there saying we want choice. We want to be able to select the school our children go to.”

Hinojosa told The Marietta Daily Journal that while "the effort" by SAE organizers "was good, it just wasn’t enough . . . to change our recommendations.”

Other action items on the school board agenda Thursday include the following:

• A recommendation by Hinojosa to appoint a successor to Mike Addison, the school system's chief financial officer, who is retiring at the end of September; 
• A recommendation to spend $4.3 million to renovate ;
• Renaming the  in Powder Springs. The recommendations are Cole Elementary School, Hendricks Elementary School and Seven Springs Elementary School;
• Recognizing the varsity color guard WGI Atlanta Regional Scholastic A Champions, and the girls soccer team, which won the Class AAA state championship.