DeKalb County School District has agreed to pay $29.5 million to seven charter schools it was found to have shortchanged for years, closing out a legal fight that started with a lawsuit filed back in 2020. The settlement divides the payout among schools including The GLOBE Academy, which will receive $5.99 million, and The Museum School of Avondale Estates, which will receive $4.07 million. Tapestry Public Charter School, DeKalb PATH Academy, Leadership Preparatory Academy, DeKalb Preparatory Academy, and DeKalb Agriculture Technology and Environment round out the list of schools splitting the funds.
The dispute traces back to claims that the charter schools had funding problems dating to 2015, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, whose education reporter Cassidy Alexander covers Georgia education issues for the outlet. When the schools sued in August 2020, they estimated more than $10 million in wrongfully withheld funds over six years — a figure that nearly tripled by the time the settlement was finalized in June 2026, largely due to ongoing underfunding and accrued pre-judgment interest, per the Georgia Coalition for Public Charter Schools.
A Judge's Findings Set the Stage
Charter schools are public schools that operate privately under district oversight, and under the Georgia Charter Schools Act of 1998, local school boards are legally required to fund charter schools no less favorably than traditional schools when it comes to instruction, administration, transportation, and food services. DeKalb County School District failed to meet those minimum funding requirements, and the district withheld state and federal funding along with a portion of the schools' funding as an administrative fee — despite not providing the administrative services that fee was meant to cover.
Fulton County Superior Court Senior Judge Jerry Baxter ruled in October 2022 that the district had breached its contracts with the seven charter schools across five separate claims. The judge found, as a matter of law, that DeKalb had improperly underfunded the schools, withheld restored state austerity funds, withheld federal special education funds, and deducted that 3% administrative fee without cause, according to the coalition's newsletter.
Appeals Courts Rejected Every Defense
DeKalb tried to escape liability by arguing sovereign immunity should shield it from breach-of-contract claims, but the Court of Appeals of Georgia unanimously rejected that defense in November 2023, affirming Baxter's summary judgment, according to case records reviewed by FindLaw. The Georgia Supreme Court then denied the district's petition for review on April 30, 2024, finalizing DeKalb's liability and leaving only the dollar amount of damages to be sorted out at trial. That trial had been scheduled for summer 2026 before the two sides reached the settlement instead.
The seven plaintiff schools collectively serve more than 4,000 public school students across DeKalb County, according to FOX 5 Atlanta. The settlement doesn't just close the books on past underfunding — it also requires the district to continue providing monthly contributions going forward and to supply monthly settlement sheets showing exactly how that funding is calculated, a mechanism apparently meant to prevent future disputes over the math.
Part of a Broader Pattern of Costly Legal Fights
This isn't the first time DeKalb County School District has been on the hook for a massive breach-of-contract payout. The district previously paid $117.5 million following a 2019 Georgia Supreme Court ruling tied to its abrupt 2009 suspension of teacher retirement contributions, made without the two-year notice its contracts required.
The charter settlement also lands amid other recent financial and legal trouble for the district. Hoodline reported in June that DeKalb had shortchanged Atlanta, Decatur schools by millions in ESPLOST sales tax distributions, an administrative miscalculation that cost neighboring Atlanta Public Schools and City Schools of Decatur at least $8.7 million between 2022 and 2026. And in December 2025, the Georgia Association of Educators sued the district for failing to issue annual written employment contracts to nearly 700 certified educators for the current school year, a case Hoodline has also covered.
State lawmakers have been working on the funding gap from another angle, too. The Georgia General Assembly passed House Bill 1122 in March 2024, adding state funding allocations for public charter school principals and superintendents in an effort to narrow the operational funding gap between charter and traditional public schools statewide. For the students at DeKalb's seven charter schools, though, the $29.5 million settlement marks the end of a six-year fight that outlasted a trial, an appeal, and a state Supreme Court petition before the district finally agreed to pay up.
