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Site purchased for new high school in Cumming
design

CUMMING — A new college and career academy, which will be the fourth public school to open in Forsyth County in half as many years, now has a place to call home.

The Forsyth County Board of Education on Thursday approved a $3.1 million contract to buy 23 acres from the city of Cumming.

The property will become the site of the Alliance Academy for Innovation of Cumming-Forsyth County, an alternative public high school.

As proposed, the property at 1100 Lanier 400 Parkway off Ga. 400 will hold a three-story building featuring a makerspace, classrooms, business center, Junior Achievement facility and two-story atrium-style cafeteria, among other learning and design aspects.

“This is a good place … we picked the site,” said Superintendent Jeff Bearden of the deal between the school system and the city. “They very much want this to happen, and at this location.”

The sale was required to be completed by March 17 so the state Department of Education could approve capital outlay funding in time to have the school built and opened by fall 2018.

The Alliance Academy will be run under the terms of the school system’s Strategic Waivers School System contact with the state.

That arrangement offers the district flexibility in the format and type of school operations in exchange for greater accountability for student performance.

The school will be open to underclassmen only for its first year. As a college and career academy, pathways not offered elsewhere in the county will be designed as a college major-type format, with students taking classes with the same peers who are interested in their own pathway.

Each of Forsyth County’s five public high schools has career pathways available to students that are not replicated between campuses.

Some of the pathways being considered for the new school include aeronautics, graphic design, energy systems, health care science and mechatronics.

A goal of the academy is to focus on high-demand, high-growth, high-wage careers, join with local universities and businesses and offer training and certification in a dual-enrollment-style system.