Getting Utopian Academy for the Arts up and running required a Herculean effort, but founder and executive director Artesius Miller was up to the task. The school received its charter in October 2013, but its establishment goes back to 1995, when the city of Atlanta started demolishing housing authority apartments to prepare for the 1996 Olympic Games. Demolition continued for 10 years, and most of the families were relocated to Clayton County, GA.
Against The Odds
In 2008, the Clayton County School District became the 2nd U.S. district to lose its accreditation, with only one other district losing accreditation in 40 years. This left the people of the county seriously concerned about the fate of its 52,000 mostly black students. Soon after, Mr. Miller began developing a board of directors for the Utopian Academy, but it would be awhile before the school opened, as more setbacks were to come.
C-TRAN, Clayton County’s proprietary public transport system, was dissolved in 2010. At the same time, Atlanta’s public transit system stopped serving Clayton County. Soon after, Utopian Academy for the Arts submitted its first charter application to the school board, but it was denied. Utopian Academy would apply three more times for its charter before receiving approval in late 2013 — the only school out of 16 statewide applications to do so.
A Symbol of Perseverance
Today, Utopian Academy for the Arts is a thriving public charter school in Atlanta, and Charter Asset Management (CAM) is proud of the assistance we’ve given to this institution to ensure it can support its rigorous academic and artistic curricula. It is the only Clayton County public school to use a single-gendered instructional approach for core classes.
CAM will maintain our partnership with the school to provide efficient, reliable access to the capital it needs to continue preparing its students for success. To learn more about how we helped the school and how we can help yours, please contact us today.