While there has been heated debate in the past year over the legality of Georgia’s new charter school law, which gives a state board authority to create charter schools around the state, there’s little debate about the popularity of its latest iteration in Avondale Estates: The Museum School.

According to a press release sent out by the school and pasted on the AJC’s Get Schooled blog, a lottery will be held tomorrow at Avondale Estates City Hall to determine which students currently living in DeKalb’s Avondale and Midway Woods attendance zones will make up the first classes of kindergarten to third-graders.  After this initial year, the school will add a grade a year up to eighth grade.

With such intense demand, what’s the controversy?  Well, like with anything involving a child’s education, it’s exceedingly complicated.

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The AJC reports that House Bill 881 has got the City of Decatur’s school board up in arms and threatening to withdraw its charter school application in protest.

The bill before the House would effectively give the state a second “body” that could approve creation of a charter school district without consent of the local school board and “force school systems to pass on full per-pupil funding, including federal, state and local tax dollars, to charters even if the local board did not approve them.” Right now some of those funds can be retained for administrative fees.

As one of the first potential charter schools in the state, Decatur seems to be using its potential poster child status for charter schools in the state to influence possible tampering at the state capitol.

According to the AJC, the issue has been placed on next Tuesday’s school board agenda at Westchester starting at 6:30p.