Three state lawmakers have proposed legislation that would change the makeup of the board of the Beaufort-Jasper Academy for Career Excellence and shift management of the school to Beaufort County.

The legislation is based on a plan that Frank Gibson, chairman of the academy's School Improvement Council, submitted to the six-member Beaufort County Legislative Delegation. Gibson has said he submitted his plan because the school's board is ineffective.

Five monthly meetings were canceled this school year because not enough members showed up to conduct business. Gibson also said that the vocational high school would benefit from having business leaders on the board.

The school serves about 573 students. Fifty percent of them come from northern Beaufort County, 20 percent from the southern part of the county and 30 percent from Jasper County, Smith has said. This year, the academy's budget is $3.5 million.

The plan includes changing the board, which comprises three Beaufort County and three Jasper County school board members. The superintendents of each district are nonvoting members.

The new board would be made up of two members from Beaufort County, two from Jasper County, and five business and industry leaders from both counties.

The plan also includes shifting control of the of the school totally to Beaufort County. Since its inception in 1975, the school has been a collaborative effort of both districts. Beaufort County provides two-thirds of the academy's budget and Jasper County, one-third.

Under the plan, Jasper County students still could attend the school, and the Jasper County School District would pay a certain amount for each student.

But Patricia Walls, an academy board member who represents Levy on the Jasper County school board, said the academy's board is considering another plan prepared by Catherine Smith, the academy's director. Smith's plan adds some business leaders, but school board members would remain the voting majority, and there would be no shift in control of the school.

Walls said the academy's board is holding a special meeting Thursday to discuss both plans and to decide how to respond to the Legislative Delegation.

The bill, which is sponsored by Reps. Thayer Rivers, D-Ridgeland, Richard Chalk, R-Hilton Head, and Bill Herbkersman, R-Bluffton, was filed Thursday.

Chalk said the legislation, which if passed would go into effect July 1, 2006, could be carried over until next year.

Rick Caporale, a Beaufort County school board member from Hilton Head Island who represents the county on the academy's board, said he sees merit in both plans and trusts state

Sen. Scott Richardson, chairman of the Legislative Delegation, to "keep the best interest of his constituents at heart."

Richardson, R-Hilton Head, said he's still reviewing the legislation, but he supports altering the academy's board because it has been having problems functioning for years.

"We've given them ample time to fix this, and they haven't fixed it," he said. "It's finally in the delegations' hands, and we're going to do what we've got to do."