DeKalb County School District administrators at its March 9 meeting reviewed data gathered on the first phase of its sweeping Student Assignment Project, which proposes closing 27 schools and expanding or repurposing others.
As expected, the results showed overall dissatisfaction with the proposed plan, the decision-making process, and a lack of quantifiable data about cost savings that will result from the upheaval.
The school system currently has about 90,000 students, which is a decline of about 20,000 students since its peak enrollment. Birth rates, affordable housing, and school choice, such as private and homeschooling, have had an impact on the declining school enrollment.
Faced with declining enrollment, aging buildings, and underpopulated schools, DCSD wants to implement a six- to eight-year plan to consolidate buildings, redistrict students, and streamline operations.
“DCSD has fulfilled many necessary conditions to prepare for this new approach,” the SAP website said. “This includes recent enrollment projections completed and certified each October, building capacities, program inventory, a comprehensive master plan, and several concentrated efforts to support families in specific clusters and neighborhoods.”
Highly ranked schools on closure list rankles parents
Among the schools under consideration for closure are highly rated Ashford Park Elementary in Brookhaven, Vanderlyn and Kingsley elementary schools in Dunwoody, and Brockett Elementary in Tucker.
U.S. News & World Report ranks Vanderlyn as the #39 rated elementary school in Georgia and #4 in DeKalb County, with Ashford Park as the seventh-ranked school in DeKalb County. Kingsley and Brockett, despite having a majority of its students classified as economically disadvantaged, have posted impressive standardized testing scores.
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All of the above-mentioned schools, except for Ashford Park, with more than 750 students, are significantly under-populated, with about 400 students each in buildings capable of holding 600 or more.
The closures have set off a wave of opposition in these and other affected neighborhoods, which was reflected in the data gathered during the first phase of the process.
Officials at the March 9 meeting highlighted concerns expressed by the 5,000 people who completed a survey about the proposed plan, feedback gathered at various public meetings, and the 150 people who served on the SAP committee.
SAP committee members rated the guiding principles established for the process highly, but only 49% of the respondents said the goal of maintaining a safe, secure, and comfortable place for learning environments for all students was done extremely well or somewhat well.
Surita Smith, the executive director of student assignment, said SAP members were concerned that historical inequities between schools in the north and those in the south would continue. In addition, they worried that most of the survey feedback was concentrated in the northern region of the county, specifically the Dunwoody and Chamblee clusters.
Other concerns surround curriculum and transportation
Other questions raised in the surveys and meetings centered on “traffic, traffic, traffic” and “equity, equity, equity,” Smith said. “It came up a lot.”
Many people said they wanted to see a quantified analysis of the savings around closing or repurposing schools, plans for closed buildings, and the impact on existing staff and special programs.
Smith said many respondents felt the six- to eight-year implementation was either too fast or too slow. The group was divided equally between people who believed that small schools are better for students, and those who felt that larger schools would offer more programming for a greater number of students.
The plan will move into the next phase, with in-person community meetings held during the week of March 23, along with two virtual meetings.
