Scintilla Charter Academy is a reality.

Today, school leaders are breaking ground on the new school facility, applications are currently being accepted and enrollment is just around the corner.

This fall the school bell will ring, children will sit at their desks and teachers will teach.

It does not really matter whether you were pro charter school, in favor of the formation of a charter school operating under the local board of education or opposed to an independently operated charter school.

All that debate is over and Scintilla Charter is happening.

This week, The Valdosta Daily Times sat down with representatives from Scintilla and talked about the status of the new school.

We were pleased to hear from Principal Julie Hiers the Scintilla mission remains to “target the lower socioeconomic and disadvantaged children who unfortunately often slip through the cracks.”

In the original application, the founding board said, “We believe that we have a moral and ethical imperative to create a learning environment where teachers can teach and learners can learn.”

As we said recently, parents in our community will be faced with an extremely important decision in the next few weeks as applications are being accepted for the new Scintilla Charter School.

As many as 400 students will be accepted.

If enrollment applications exceed 400 or if any one grade-level exceeds its limit, then there will be a lottery for the enrollment slots.

Parents must decide if the charter school model is right for them and their children.

A charter school may not be right for every family.  

All schools — whether public schools, public charter schools or private schools — have pros and cons.  

Students have both good and bad experiences in private schools, public schools and charter schools.

One definite positive thing that we were excited to learn this week is that Scintilla will be asking every parent to donate time to volunteer in the school.

School success is directly tied to parents who are involved in their child’s education and incubate a learning environment in the home, communities that highly value education, teachers who are free to innovate and inspire and school administrators who are positive and supportive.

All of these things are possible in private schools, public schools and charter schools.

As we have already observed, we believe the success of Scintilla will depend, in part, on each of these components.

While the charter school is publicly funded, the state funding model for new charters does not include local matching funds for the city or county school system.

That means, charter school leaders said, no local monies are being taken away from the Valdosta or Lowndes County public school systems to create and operate Scintilla.

In the charter petition, the founders explained why they think our region needs Scintilla.

They said, “There are major gaps between the socio-economic groups in the Valdosta area. This is largely evident in the differences between Lowndes County Schools and Valdosta City Schools. The demographics between Lowndes and Valdosta are vastly different. However, the economically disadvantaged in both systems fall further behind, particularly in science and social studies, as each year progresses.”

We are not saying, by any means, that charter schools are for everyone.

When it comes to education, there is no magic bullet and no “one size fits all” formula.

The best thing we can say about Scintilla is that it will provide families with a choice.

The smaller class size and the project-based learning that are key components of the Scintilla model may be a perfect fit for some students.

Other students may do better in the more traditional public school.

We like what board member Zachary Cowart said when he observed that people want a choice when it comes to their doctor or lawyer, so why wouldn’t the community want more choices when it comes to the education of our children?