Demand for private school education is on the rise. And so are clashes among neighbors in established, desirable suburbs when those schools attempt to expand their campuses.

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Phil Skinner/pskinner@ajc.com (ENLARGE)

Ann Feldman repositions a sign opposing the proposed Epstein School expansion as her 4-year-old twin daughters Abbie (left) and Rachel watch.

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Nowhere is the conflict now more intense than in Sandy Springs, a growing city with young families seeking high-quality schools.

Two well-regarded private schools — the Epstein School and Holy Spirit Preparatory School — have raised hackles this year among some neighbors, for their plans to expand.

At both schools, parents and administrators say they need more space.

Some neighbors, many of whom have lived in the areas for years, say they worry that expansion will result in lost privacy, increased traffic and other unwanted changes.

The applications are dividing neighbors, particularly around the Epstein School, which plans to expand by tearing down several adjacent homes.

"All they want is what they want, and they do not care what the repercussions are in the neighborhood," said Jill Coolik, a homeowner on the affected street. Coolik, who turned down an offer to sell her property to the school, will be surrounded if the campus expands.

Robin Friedrich, who lives in the neighborhood and whose child attends Epstein, is more sympathetic toward the school's desire to grow. "There are some [people] who don't want anything to change in Sandy Springs. They want to capture it in time."

Both expansion projects have drawn standing-room-only crowds to public meetings.

In previous years, conflict played out in other Atlanta communities, including in Buckhead, where Pace Academy wanted to expand its athletic facilities; in Midtown, where the Children's School wanted to grow; and in Roswell, where a private Christian school wanted to expand.

In Sandy Springs, the Epstein School, a Jewish school for children in elementary and middle grades, wants city permission to increase its enrollment from 650 to 850 students, and to build a theater and an early childhood education building. If approved, its landlocked campus on Colewood Way would grow by four acres, to 15 acres.

A few miles away, Holy Spirit Preparatory, a Catholic school for students in pre-kindergarten through high school — and which already has two academic campuses — wants to build an athletic complex on a third site off Long Island Drive.

The project would include an administrative building and a combined football and soccer field. The site is on eight acres of undeveloped land overlooking I-285, but bordered on another side by one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.

The Sandy Springs City Council will start reviewing both plans this month. Holy Spirit is up first, on Aug. 19. Epstein follows in September.

Because both applications affect children and their education, as well as longtime residents and their neighborhoods, some people say the arguments can become overly emotional.

"In every e-mail I send out to the neighborhood, I say we need to be respectful," said Ann Feldman, a neighborhood association president in the neighborhood divided over Epstein's request. "In the end we are all neighbors."

Holy Spirit already has a football field at its upper school in Atlanta but is prohibited from using lighting or from playing organized games at the site. For the past three years, the school's home games were played at Life University in Marietta.

Neighbors fear, among other things, additional noise from games and increased traffic.

Although a new athletic field would provide a venue for home games, the primary use will be on weekday afternoons by elementary- and middle school-aged students, said Gareth Genner, president of Holy Spirit.

The impact of the facility has been distorted by opponents, he said. "The most significant use for the athletic field at the new campus is, in fact, preschoolers through sixth-graders playing soccer," Genner said. "The football use is easy to dramatize."

Epstein, which occupies a former Fulton County public school, needs amenities such as flexible teaching space, said Head of School Stan Beiner, in an e-mailed message. The school is responding to increased interest among parents in enrolling children, he said, which is due in part to Sandy Springs' growing Jewish population.

As a condition for its acquisition of a former public school, Epstein in 1994 agreed to hold its enrollment to 650. Some neighbors say they feel betrayed by the new push to accommodate 850 students.

Beiner responded: "The school is disappointed that some of the neighbors are using that argument as a way to oppose our plan. As many schools do, we have grown and are now asking for permission to raise the cap and add four more acres."