Georgia man claims school trying to prevent use of defunct facility for charter school due to 'competition'

A 21-year-old Georgia man and military veteran who founded an organization seeking to help young Black kids stay out of jail and acquire life and job skills claimed Tuesday he is being stonewalled at every turn by the local school administration in his quest to purchase a to-be-demolished school building as a charter institution.

King Randall joined Lawrence Jones on "Fox News Primetime" to discuss his organization "The X For Boys", and how he believes his organization is doing a better job than government or the media at holding elected leaders accountable for systemic problems in local communities.

"I feel like watching media and looking on social media et cetera is kind of taking us backwards because we are not holding our leaders accountable. We are pointing fingers you know at everyone except our leaders and we won't hold them responsible for what's going on in our communities," the Albany, Ga., native said.

Randall told Jones that in Albany, the Dougherty County Schools were planning to demolish a school building that he wanted to purchase to use as a charter school for the youth in his program.

However, he said it appears the district is, in his words, afraid of "competition" from a private institution.

"I work with children. I have been working with them for two years now. I actually started taking temporary custody of children in my home. I work with children that have been molested. They have been sexually abused, [kids] who have been starved at home…" he said.

"We are in the process of opening a school for these children in the city of Albany, we are actually purchasing the school from my local school system and we have been working on a deal for seven months with our local school system but they have been giving us pushback in trying to do things that are blatantly counterproductive as to what we are trying to do: We are trying to open our own private school in the city of Albany yet our school board leadership doesn't want those things to happen."

He said that when he recently sought to purchase it, the purchase sale agreement sought $500,000 for the parcel despite the fact the building would have otherwise been demolished.

However, he added that he wasn't too upset in the end, until he noticed the deed of conveyance included a usage restriction on the building that stated it could not be used as a parochial or private school.

"I've never seen a purchase sale agreement where the seller tells a buyer what they can and can't do with a building. They put in the contract and said that the deed of conveyance shall contain a use restriction that we cannot use the school that we're purchasing to open a private or a charter school unless the Dougherty County school system is providing educational services," he said.

"I believe the taxpayers want this school to be donated to us. And the school superintendent told our community only way they could donate the school is if we could prove the school would be public benefit for the community and clearly our school and our track record for The X For Boys are proven. We have been running for two years. 86% reading comprehension rate. 0% Recidivism," he continued.

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"Our superintendent knows we have children in the juvenile system waiting on this school to be open. We have children that are in foster homes and group homes waiting for this school to be open. We have many parents waiting for this school to be open... I find it absolutely absurd I have to keep telling these children to wait, to wait, to wait."

Randall alleged that an administrator told him that The X For Boys is seen as "competition" and that he didn't want to donate a school to the competition.

"There it is right there. King," Jones replied. "Is that the reason why they are doing this? They don't want any competition. Meanwhile, the system is failing our kids."