Dekalb Board Meeting

[krista hanson]

Forwarding email I got from other site about upcoming meeting:

For DeKalb residents, there are some important school district
developments occurring in a very short period of time.  The
Superintendent is doing an address to the community on 12/3 at the HQs
on Mountain Industrial and then there are subsequent meetings after
her address (see below).  If you read the proposal below, there are
significant impacts to every DeKalb taxpayer and not just parents.
DCSD is considering requesting school construction bonds to accelerate
SPLOST projects which would add millions of dollars of interest
expense to the county, but would provide larger and new schools
faster.

Reviewing the proposal is critical to forming informed and logical
decisions and will help our communities mitigate the emotional
response which occurred during the redistricting two years ago.


By Ty Tagami
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The DeKalb County school board will meet Thursdaydec. 6 at 2 p.m. to
discuss school closures and attendance line changes recommended this
week by Superintendent Cheryl Atkinson.
Her plan would close a dozen schools that were slated for renovations.
Atkinson proposes using the money saved to accelerate work on other
projects. She also has recommended issuing $80 million in bonds
against future sales tax revenue to fund work earlier.
The board is scheduled for a final vote at 6 p.m. on Dec. 10. Both
meetings are at 1701 Mountain Industrial Blvd., Stone Mountain. The
details are online at

www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/www/documents/splost-iv/proposed-organization-facilities-presentation-and-binder-(2012-11-12).pdf

[Kelly and Pat Markushewski]

FYI -- 

Here is a message from the Laurel Ridge Neighbors yahoo group ---

To: LaurelRid...@yahoogroups.com

From: jonwb...@gmail.com

Date: Mon, 10 Dec 2012 23:46:46 -0500

Subject: Re: Fwd: [LaurelRidgeDeKalbGA] Future of Laurel Ridge?

Upon closer inspection, I think we have good reason to be alarmed by this. This is a very disconcerting news for not only our children but our neighborhood. Even if you don't have children who attend Laurel Ridge Elementary, if the school is closed it would likely hurt our home values. Here's what I can tell:

If you look at this site, you can see there were previous versions of the proposed school organization. In the Nov. 27 version, Laurel Ridge and the other elementary schools in the Druid Hills Cluster appear basically unchanged in enrollment numbers in 2016. However in the Dec 6 version, Laurel Ridge shows 0 enrollment, and as was pointed out earlier, McClendon shows a 350 person increase, exceeding its capacity by 295 children for a Utilization percentage of 153%! The new Fernbank school would appear to account for the remaining Laurel Ridge students (probably the Medlock area children). Because these changes occurred between these two versions and the redistributed enrollment numbers appear to roughly add up, it appears almost certain this is not due to an error. My guess is someone with Dekalb County looked at the maps after the Nov 27 version and said, "Which two elementary schools are fairly close that could be merged together?," and Laurel Ridge was targeted to feed mostly into McClendon.

 

The worst part about this would be the impact on the quality of the kids' education. Cramming 854 students into a school (McClendon) designed for 559 would not make for quality education. Even if Laurel Ridge were closed (I hate to even consider it), there are certainly smarter ways of redistributing its students, such as sending some to Briarlake and Oak Grove, i.e. share the burden on various schools. I know that would send kids out a cluster but that seems fairer than cramming them all into one school. It seems the impetus for all this mess was the building of the new Fernbank school, which was under its capacity by roughly 100. So the end result is they close an established, successful school like Laurel Ridge and send most of students to another school out of the neigbhorhood and already near capacity? Wouldn't it make more sense to just have a slightly undercapacity Fernbank?

 

The good news is there is still time to give feedback.  If only a few people comment about this, the Board will think it's not a big problem and probably rubber stamp the proposal. I'm glad to hear Laurel Ridge PTA and other folks are already working on this issue. I think our best bet is to mobilize and communicate en masse. Perhaps a series of key arguments/talking points about why Laurel Ridge should be kept can be developed, as was done a couple of years ago when Laurel Ridge was last on the list for closure consideration. Then I would think it would be good to communicate these points to the official email box but also to the Board members themselves, as well as at the upcoming meeting in January.

 

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