The 21 schools in the Floyd County School system just began their first year as a Charter school system, and each is faced with the task of organizing Local School Governance Teams while educating the county’s students.

At this week’s Exchange club meeting Superintendent Lynn Plunkett, Floyd County Schools spokesman Tim Hensley and adminstrator Sherry Childs took turns explaining the charter system’s creation and how it will work.

Specifically, they focused on the importance of the Local School Governance Team and explained how it operates at each school.

Elected teams will consist of two parents, two faculty members, two community leaders and the principal.

Parents will elect the parent members of the governance teams in September.

Along with the election of parents, two members of the board will be selected from community leaders, one to be ap-pointed by the principal and one appointed by the other members of the governance teams.

Hensley said that the first two parents elected to the gov-ernance teams will serve on staggered terms, with one parent serving a year-long term and the other serving a two-year term.

“After the first one-year term, each parent elected will serve a two-year term,” Hensley said. “We wanted to begin with staggered terms so that there would still be a parent with experience on the board once a new one is elected.”

Once teams are put in place, a three-tiered training sched-ule beginning this year and stretching into 2012 will help the teams understand and make informed decisions about each school on a variety of topics including curriculum and budg-etary concerns.

The teams will still have to abide by state and federal laws and education mandates but will have some control in deci-sion making on the local level.

“The teams will have the freedom and flexibility to make decisions based on what’s going to be best for the children,” Plunkett said. “But all the schools will still work under the countywide strategic plan.”

Teams will make school-wide decisions on disciplinary problems within legal frameworks, curriculum and capital expenditures.

In order to maintain fairness and consistency within the system, the governance teams will have one member from each school serve on a Local School Coordinating Council, who will meet with Plunkett and school board members on a regular basis to ensure the county’s strategic plan is being implemented.

“The Floyd County Board of Education will be maintaining its responsibilities,” Plunkett said. “But it’s all about a part-nership with our parents in the community and making our schools better for the children we serve.”

Floyd County is the largest system to attain system-wide charter status in Georgia, Hensley and Childs told the club.

The system, according to Childs, took great strides to study every option available and formed a committee of community and business leaders, parents, teacher and principals from each school to study the county’s different options.

Childs said the committee had no input from the central office on the decision to move to a Charter system.