Organizers of the Museum School of Avondale Estates have a lot to do between now and its scheduled launch in August.

With its charter just approved by the Georgia Charter School Commission, the school has to find a location, hire teachers and recruit students.

The commission recently approved the Museum School charter and six others statewide.

“We were relieved and delighted. They (the charter school commission) really have the interests of the students in mind,” said Mary Lamb, the vice chairwoman of the school’s board of directors. “But we have a lot to do.”

Ms. Lamb said student recruitment will begin next month for the school which is named because it will use area museums as part of its curriculum.

She said the school hopes to have 130 students in grades kindergarten through three in its first year with future plans to expand classes through eighth grade.

The school’s attendance zone is within zip code 30002, according to its charter.

School officials are looking to lease a site and use modular buildings until a permanent site in Avondale Estates could be found, she said.

Ms. Lamb said the school’s goal is to have nine classrooms, each staffed with a teacher and paraprofessional.

The newly approved schools still face a potential hurdle — a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the law allowing the state, rather than local systems, to charter schools.

The Gwinnett County School Board filed the suit earlier this year in Fulton County Superior Court. The DeKalb County school board joined the suit in October.

A hearing date has not been released.

The DeKalb Board of Education denied a charter for the Avondale Estates Museum School in July.

Ms. Lamb said the pending suit will not affect preparations to launch the Museum School.

“We are following the advice of the Georgia Charter School Commission,” she said. “Everyone that we talk to says the law will stand.”

The Georgia Charter School Commission also approved another new charter school in DeKalb.

The Peachtree Hope Charter School also is scheduled to open in the fall of 2010.

No other details were immediately available on the school.

Information: www.themuseumschool.org or www.peachtreehope-sabis.net.