the Co-operative Academy

I submitted this proposal to my school regarding what would happen if they go ahead with academy status. Either the school is taken over by a private corporation, or we save it by taking it into collective ownership, I’ve already had worries over the legality of children owning shares in a co-op, and I can’t deal with them at the moment because I’m busy being a Journalist in London, anyway here’s the proposal:

Under a co-operative every student in the school automatically would become employee shareholders. This means they own one share in the co-operative for as long as they remain at the school. The co-operative gives every student the right to propose an idea, and every idea can be voted upon every week or term in a school referendum; one share is equal to one vote and no student can own more than one share each.
If a decision is approved by more than 66% of the students it goes up to the second tier of governance; this is comprised of the parents, teachers and school staff. The role of the second tier is to filter out bad ideas and to propose amendments to sensible ideas. This second tier would own real shares in the co-operative (valued at £1 each) and would be able to vote at an Annual General Meeting twice a year. Shareholders also have the right to propose ideas to be voted on at the AGM.
The final tier of governance is the Senior Management Team who take care of the day-to-day running of the school. If possible the students would also be represented by an independent school student’s union, and a representative of that union would be a member of the Senior Management Team

That is what the democratic structure would look like, and this would be enshrined in the constitution of the co-operative.
I have written to the Co-operative Education Trust Scotland to ask for resources, and have also found two examples of academy projects backed by the Co-operative Group:

• Brownhills Maths and Computing College
• Plant Hill Arts College

A co-operative would allow the school to take control of it’s finances under the academy scheme without compromising the internal democracy of the school. It would also safeguard the school from unwanted corporate influence, for example a corporation would be free to make a profit off of the Academy and could mould the curriculum to serve their interests.

Lastly I should emphasise that although a co-operative academy would greatly benefit the students, academy status is not ideal for the whole school, and that the best position would be to remain as it is.

I’m being brief because I’ve got to go to bed soon to wake up early tomorrow for the commute, good night everyone!