POWDER SPRINGS, Ga. — On the first day of school last August, Kolt Bloxson cried. After four years of raising money, building an executive board, hiring teachers, creating a cutting-edge curriculum and handling an abundance of other responsibilities, she opened the doors to the Miles Ahead Charter School just outside Atlanta.
As the students, who are referred to as “scholars,” milled about the refurbished halls of a former church auxiliary building, the manifestation of Bloxson’s dream became a living, breathing thing. The magnitude of it all moved her.
“It was like when your child is born,” Bloxson, a Boston native, whose son’s name is — you guessed it — Miles.
But the tears did not last. “There was breakfast to be served. And lunch,” she said. “The reality of what was taking place took over.”
Bloxson, 39, was an Atlanta Public Schools educator for 18 years, but founding a school was not part of her career goals. Her zeal for children in general, and educating them in particular, however, were the paramount reasons she embarked on a new journey.
In 2019, it appeared to Bloxson that opportunities for quality education for Black students in underserved communities near her home were dwindling. Two elementary schools had merged and, at the time, the specter of other closures loomed. Bloxson decided to take on full bore the laborious challenge of creating Miles Ahead.
“There was a growing gap that I wanted to fill,” she said.
And so, with that mission as her inspiration, Bloxson found a location for the school, carefully assembled a board, hand-picked teachers, and learned state regulations for opening and operating a school and countless other undertakings.
“Whew. It was by no means easy,” she said. “But as we continued to move ahead, it became more feasible.”
Covid delayed the opening by a year, but with the extra time, Bloxson and…
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