"The award recognizes educators who have demonstrated excellence in teaching students from diverse racial, ethnic and cultural backgrounds. "

Um, anyone seen the demographics of Neighborhood Charter School lately?!?!?!

Congrats Mr. Fine!

Thats the perception but the reality is ANCS's rate of economic disadvantage is lower than all but two of APS's 107 schools.  The rate is lower than Brandon Elementary and Smith Elementary in Buckhead.  It is lower than Springdale Park which serves Midtown and Virginia Highland.  It is lower than Mary Lin which serves Inman Park, Candler Park, and Lake Claire.
http://eastatlanta.patch.com/blog_posts/de-facto-segregation-and-neighborhood-charter-school-now-ancs

Last year, only 19% of Atlanta Public School's Kindergarteners were white, but 75% of ANCS's kindergarten class was white.  Last year, only 13% of the school's students qualified for free and reduced lunch programs while 75% of APS studnets qualified.

The charter school movement in Atlanta is being abused by middle class white families to avoid private school tuition and that takes the spaces from the disadvantaged youth these schools should be serving.

Aren't local public/charter schools for the kids that live in the neighborhood? These comments are banal, per the usual course of the libs in the hood.

I agree that Charter Schools did not arise solely to meet that need but ask yourself this question...If ANCS and Drew were to advertise that they were an escape hatch for ITP white middle class families to avoid traditional APS schools, would that be acceptable? Because of those schools are championing themselves as "diverse" schools that are feeding the needs of the disadvantaged. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

That's a typical- for this day and age- knee-jerk opinion, whether from the left or right; that is, stick to an ideology rather than look at the facts. Before NCS (now, ANCS), families left the neighborhood when their children became school age. APS was broken (still is, in many respects), and administration from the Board to the schoolhouse did not listen to parents, thus the impetus for the charter school. As NCS grew and proved itself, the middle school was added- this year is the first, I believe, that it started with all seats filled. As in any other area of America, good schools provide a draw for families, and so families have stayed and more have moved into neighborhoods closest to ANCS. Note too that Wesley International, another charter, is within 1.5 mi. of ANCS, but draws district-wide. The ANCS middle school now takes in almost all of the 60 kids from the 5th grade class at the elementary, and has room for 15 more or so district-wide. These two k-8 schools forced APS to 'up it's game' in the surrounding elementaries, and they have finally gotten good leadership at the cluster MS, ML King (that took inordinately long, although Ms. Battle did provide some relief there for a time).
What keeps low-income kids from ANCS? There's plenty of them in the 'tier-1' school zone, but their parents don't apply, so you'd have to ask them. And do note, that although the 'free-and-reduced-price lunch' benchmark may be low (now), this is not a wealthy area.

Back to the story: Congratulations, Mr. Fine! Mr. Fine is, well, kind of a 'different bird,' marches to his own drummer- and his love of teaching kids- middle schoolers!- it is obvious he loves his calling. He is one of those rare individuals that has found employment doing what he loves to do- and it shows. He's makes quick studies of all his students- I wouldn't doubt he knows most of them better than their parents. They end up with no choice but to think, for themselves, what he presents to them. He's the teacher- among a number at that school, btw - that a student always remembers, not just in the funny stories told amongst classmates in later years, but when faced with academic questions- they can go back to the principles they learned in his classroom, and use them again. Great teacher, terrific mentor, always a positive influence on his students.