There's a new redistricting plan for DeKalb County. The current options do not solve the problems, especially for Dunwoody and Lakeside areas. The plan is designed to protect the Druid Hills and Fernbank areas.
Here's a link to the Sept 10 school cluster meeting notes.
The district has a well-documented issue with declining enrollment. Parts of south DeKalb have had half-empty schools for 15+ years. Schools in Dunwoody, until recently, were always overcrowded.
Before we get into new maps for attendance zones, the school district has a policy for redistricting.
DCSD Board Policy AD: “School attendance areas may need to be altered for a variety of reasons including, but not limited to, population changes, capacity or operating efficiency concerns, change in the use of a school, closure of a school, and the opening of a new school.”
Under this policy, alternations of school attendance areas are based primary criteria:
- Geographic proximity
- Instructional capacity
- Projected enrollment
When the primary criteria indicate more than one option for action, the options are evaluated on basis of one or more of the following:
- Safety and traffic patterns
- Previous redistricting
- Intact neighborhoods
- Special programs
- Condition of facility
- School feeder alignment
- Efficient and economical operations, or
- Other criteria, to be publicly disclosed at or prior to a final decision by the Board
The amount of money in your bank account and the color of your skin is not supposed to matter for redistricting. The goal is to send kids to the closest school that has capacity.
In March, we wrote this entry regarding Austin, Vanderlyn, and Kingsley.
New maps are on the DeKalb web site. We can already hear the legit cries from Kingsley homeowners.
At first glance, it looks like Vanderlyn and Austin are being protected from adding new students, for the benefit of Vandy and Austin homeowners. But that is not the reason attendance lines remain in place for these two schools. Austin and Vanderlyn are intentionally being kept under-capacity so DeKalb employees from across the county (and outside the county!) can send their kids here. Austin is also home to a new county 3-yearolds pre-pre-pre-school classroom(s) and behavioral disorder classrooms. The pre-pre-pre school and behavioral classes aren't in Austin due to an urgent need in the Austin zone.
The most striking problem with almost every option that is currently being proposed is a refusal to return Austin Elementary School back into a neighborhood school. Most community members do not realize that Austin has become a dumping ground in recent years for programs and transfers that erode the neighborhood character that most elementary schools in DeKalb enjoy. This fact ripples through the remainder of the cluster in various ways and makes every other school worse off than it otherwise would be.
When Austin was rebuilt, the district refused to adjust the attendance zone. This was partly due to the incompetence of DeKalb and partly the fault of petty parents who fought redistricting. Their lack of vision would quickly boomerang and harm the very schools they sought to insulate.
If today’s parents and community would unite and demand that Austin be returned to its status, quietly removed, as a neighborhood school, we could begin to fix problems and avoid being the latest victim of more DeKalb incompetence. Below is the plan to get behind.
(1) Remove all special programs and transfers from Austin
PreK3/4: 61-65 students
Out of attendance zone students 106
Total: approximately 170 student spaces
(2) Austin Enrollment = approximately 820
Less programs and transfers in = 650
(3) Close Vanderlyn and move students to Austin and Kingsley (enrollment 413- 60 (out of zone transfers) = 353) – north of Mt. Vernon/ west of Tilly Mill goes to Austin; south and east goes to new Vanderlyn at Kingsley site. This allows for the old Vanderlyn property to be used to improve the high school. It badly needs more field space and a new gym.
(4) Rebuild Vanderlyn Elementary on the Kingsley site called “Vanderlyn at Kingsley” (VAK) – demand this in the new eSPLOST. Kingsley has 373 students enrolled with 48 from out of the attendance zone for a net of 325 students.
(5) Revive the Shallowford Elementary School project – almost $7 million of YOUR tax dollars was already spent on site and in planning to build this new school. The plans exist – build it. Don't allow our own city to again fight and oppose a new school here.
(6) Move Chesnut students to the new school on Shallowford we should have opened already. The district can use the old Chesnut site for special programs if they choose or sell the property. I’m sure the city or Spruill could use it for a community center or studio space or some sort of park/rec facility.
The current option 2 and 3 plans only harm the neighborhood characteristics of the elementary schools in our cluster. Option 3 moves so many students from Hightower into Kingsley and Chesnut that traffic in Dunwoody will become more unbearable than it already is. Option 1 doesn’t change the status quo but continues to harm schools by undermining their neighborhood character. We can do better. That will only happen when parents understand the politics at play, form a united front, and relentlessly pursue this commonsense approach.
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