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JASPER — The Hamilton County School Board approved to join seven other counties in a lawsuit against House Bill 7069 at Monday night’s meeting.

“Seven districts that have committed to the lawsuit,” School attorney James Willingham said. “Bay, Broward, Lee, Miami-Dade, St. Lucie, Palm Beach, and Volusia. There is indication that Pinellas and Orange county will come in. With just the seven that have committed that is over 1 million students in their total student body.”

Willingham and Superintendent Rex Mitchell agreed that House Bill 7069 is unconstitutional. The education reform bill that was signed by Gov. Rick Scott this summer requires local school districts to share millage revenue with charter schools in the area while also encouraging charter schools, or “schools of hope” to open in areas of consistently low-performing school districts. The bill also limits the turnaround options for those school districts to improve their grades.

The board approved that Hamilton County School District will join the lawsuit and put forth a maximum of $5,000 toward the $350,000 total, of all seven counties.

The school board also discussed its Turnaround Option Plan for the new school year.With the information gathered during a meeting between Mitchell and Chancellor Hershel Lyons, the school must include in their plan that they will find, during the 2017-18 school year, a provider and to use the external operator for the 2018-19 school year.

“In order for us to get this plan passed,” Mitchell said. “We have written into here that we will do in the 17-18 school year, would be to look for an organization that could work with us this year. But should there be no alternative they would also be in place to serve us in the 18-19 school year.”

The school board has to have a contract signed by Jan. 31, 2018, and can negotiate how they would work together. Mitchell stated he would like to negotiate that if the school makes a C or better, or the law changes they no longer have to have an external operator.

The school board approved the plan and Mitchell submitted the plan to the FDOE for their approval.

Mitchell also explained that the new elementary school was given a new school NSIB number in error and will revert back to North Hamilton Elementary’s NSIB number 0041.

“The problem is had that been a new school, as far as all of this goes (TOP 2 Plan), we would start from scratch,” Mitchell explained. “Not a word. Not a word until last Thursday. Now we fall under where North Hamilton would have been had they continued to exist. Because North Hamilton would have made, this would have been their third D, they would be in phase one of this.”

The school board received $131,000 in savings back from Parrish-McCall and CRA, who built the new elementary school. The savings will go towards pay back a large portion of what the school owes.

“Parrish-McCall was glad to be apart of this project,” Jeff Lajza from Parrish-McCall said. “I can’t believe how fast it’s gone. We’re proud of the project and we did it in about two and a half months less then the last time we did it and we had better quality.”

Hamilton County will have their Back to School bash on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and a ribbon cutting ceremony Sunday at 2 p.m.

The budget workshop and discussion of the old elementary school buildings will be moved from Aug. 28 to Aug. 21 at 4 p.m.