More than 200 residents attended Fulton Board of Education member Michelle Morancie’s community meeting to discuss the possible closure of Spalding Drive Elementary School in Sandy Springs.
Many community members are part of an organized effort to “Save Spalding Drive Elementary,” with a website created, T-shirts and signs printed, and a Change.org petition with 1,722 signatures as of 9:30 a.m. Thursday.
FCS Chief Operating Officer Noel Maloof said during the Wednesday night meeting at Woodland Elementary that a decision to close Spalding is not final. Community input drives the process, he said.
Maloof’s statement that “academics is not one of the things that we consider in this process” was met with laughter and derision from the audience. He said FCS provides the same academic opportunities across the school district.
Nora Robb, the mother of a first grader and a rising pre-K student, said her son cried hysterically and had trouble sleeping the night they told him about the closure recommendation.
“We have talked about moving to get more space, and he has told us that we can move anywhere we want, as long as he can still go to Spalding,” she said.
Robb said it’s hard to understand why academic performance isn’t considered for a high-performing school like Spalding.
Maloof said the closure recommendation came after looking at enrollment projections across the district by region. The Sandy Springs region has more classrooms than it needs for elementary schools.
He said elementary schools with less than 450 students are candidates for closure, and Spalding currently has less than 400.
“We’ve got some big imbalances in this region,” Maloof said. “There is a lot of extra capacity.”
Courtney Gardner asked if the school district had a process to help schools with low enrollment attract more children. She said Spalding competes with private schools for students.
Maloof said higher enrollment at Spalding would not remove the need to close an elementary school in the Sandy Springs area.
Parents said a long pre-K wait list for children inside and outside the Spalding school zone shows enrollment could be higher.
Maloof said that pre-K enrollment is not a factor in long-term projections. The school district uses kindergarten as a baseline, which captures those former pre-K students. State funding limits how many pre-K classrooms at each school to one or two.
He said another factor in the closure recommendations was how much it would cost to keep the facility open as things such as the HVAC or roof reach the end of their life cycle.
Maloof said the process of closing or consolidating a school is community-based. The next opportunity for community engagement will be a Microsoft Team meeting on Sept. 23 at noon and 6 p.m. called Redistricting and Consolidation 101. He said a link to the meeting will be added to the page.
He said parents should send their comments to planning@fultonschools.org. The school district will use all comments in making a final recommendation to the school board.
