ATLANTA — Georgia’s public school system is about to undergo its biggest changes in a generation, but all the changes won’t necessarily be good ones, state education leaders told a committee of the Clarke County Board of Education Tuesday.

Two big things are working their way through the political process, said Margaret Ciccarelli, director of legislative services for the Professional Association of Georgia Educators, or PAGE.

Ciccarelli spoke to the school board’s government relations committee Tuesday morning, along with Chris Baumann, executive director of the Georgia Association of Educators, and Jimmy Stokes, executive director of the Georgia Association of Educational Leaders.

One is an education reform commission, appointed by Gov. Nathan Deal and chaired by former UGA President Charles Knapp, Ciccarelli said.

The second is Deal’s proposal for an “Opportunity School District,” controlled by gubernatorial appointees rather than local elected school boards, the elected state school superintendent or the state board of education. Up to 100 “failing” schools from around the state could be placed in the district.

Every one of the schools listed as candidates for the governor’s school district has an above-average number of students eligible for free and reduced lunch, Stokes told the committee.

Deal’s proposal was approved by the legislature as an amendment to the state constitution, which now guarantees local control of schools. The proposal won’t become reality unless voters approve it in the general election of November 2016.

The Opportunity School District is modeled on a similar one installed in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina, but it’s debatable as to how effective that district has been, said the educational leaders.

It’s also not clear who would provide services such as buses and school lunches in the Opportunity School District, they said.

“The language is quite loose,” commented Clarke County School Superintendent Philip Lanoue.

Some states have had success with a different approach, which is to get more community involvement in struggling schools, Lanoue said.

“There are some models that are showing reasonable results,” he said.

Those “wraparound” models bring in other agencies that can help with other things that affect what goes on in schools, such as medical care and housing, he said.

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