Home > Snellville.Talk > Archives > 2007 > September > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USFollowing the ups and downs of school growth?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
News has been a little confusing for followers of schools in the South Gwinnett area.
First there was a report that student enrollment for the South Gwinnett cluster of schools — as well as the county as a whole — was less than the county projected.
Then, a breakdown showed that South Gwinnett schools have a high number of trailers this year. AJC Story: Overcrowding puts students in trailers
I was curious how these things went together, and also, how they match up with building plans for county schools.
I’ve learned a few details.
Not only did the South Gwinnett cluster not grow as much as was expected this past year, it didn’t grow at all. It lost students.
The student count last week showed that the only South school with an enrollment higher than last year’s is Snellville Middle School, and that was only by 7 students. Collectively, the cluster dropped by 206 students from last year to this year.
That gap is narrowed as students continue to enroll, but it marks a distinct change for the area.
(A quick note: A school cluster is a high school and the middle and elementary schools that feed into it. South Gwinnett’s cluster includes South Gwinnett High School, Snellville Middle School, W.C. Britt Elementary, Norton Elementary and Magill Elementary.)
As for trailers, South schools have the second highest number of any cluster in the county. (Central Gwinnett had the highest.) Compared to last year, South’s schools also had the highest net increase in trailers of any cluster in the county.
So enrollment has gone down but trailers have gone up?
Yes, but it’s not that simple, I’m told.
Because of the lower enrollment, not all trailers on school campuses around Snellville may be needed this year. Of those that are, some are used for special programs offered at the schools. Class size also affects the number of trailers, school officials said.
South’s schools are overcrowded, however. They are over their capacity by 1,765 students.
Rosebud Elementary — a new school set to open next year in the South cluster is expected to offer some relief, particularly for Norton Elementary, said Sloan Roach, a spokeswoman for Gwinnett County Public Schools.
A new middle school, set to open in 2010 will further ease conditions.
Also, an addition at South Gwinnett High School in 2011 and a new elementary school in 2012 have been identified as needs, though funding has not been approved, Roach said.
Elsewhere in the county, far more is on the drawing board. Gwinnett County is aggressively working on not only new schools, but three new clusters of schools,
The new Archer cluster will relieve Grayson and Dacula. The new Lanier cluster will relieve North Gwinnett, and a new Mountain View cluster will relieve the Mill Creek, Collins Hill and Dacula schools. There is a long list of building projects for those areas.
School officials have said they want to look at how the struggling housing market has affected growth in Gwinnett. At this time, they don’t think the enrollment dip in the South cluster indicates a trend.
“Our forecast still calls for growth in the South cluster,” Roach said. “That said, we update our forecast each year to make adjustments based on the current year and changes in growth patterns. Our planners typically do that analysis in February. At that point, we would have a better idea on any changes to our forecast.”
Do you think the South Gwinnett school cluster will see continued growth? What about other Gwinnett school clusters?
Permalink | Comments (19) | Post your comment | Categories: Susan Gast
Comments
By Les
September 13, 2007 7:51 AM | Link to this
I am completely stunned by the number of trailers at Parkview High in South Gwinnett. The trailer count is over forty… perhaps fifty? Does the number of classroom trailers outnumber the amount of real classrooms?
By Pompano
September 13, 2007 9:34 AM | Link to this
I think the bigger question is that after over-forecasting the number of students - and thus hiring to much staff - the county has announced that that they “will find places” for this extra staff.
By my calculations, this extra staff will cost the county between $10 to $15 mil. What an expensive mistake and waste of Gwinnett taxpayer money.
A manager in the private sector would lose their job over a mistake of this magnitude. Our over-paid Super should be held accountable and should be fired for this.
By wichita lineman
September 13, 2007 9:38 AM | Link to this
Parkview High is in the Parkview Cluster and has no trailers in use this year!! Parkview was able to take over the vacated space next door from the former Trickum Middle when they moved to their new campus.
By Kim
September 13, 2007 10:45 AM | Link to this
Using a very scientific method to predict enrollment is schools is approriate. What scientific methods did not take into consideration was the massive shift in the real estate market. No one predicted the huge change that real estate has seen since the middle of the winter. In addition, no one predicted the huge negative effect of the loan market. Gwinnett County Public Schools does an incredible job in predicting. Look at the trend of predictability over the past 15 years. Amazing! Thanks, GCPS. So, this is a wierd year. As responsible as GCPS has been with our tax dollars, I am sure they will be once again.
By Pompano
September 13, 2007 11:13 AM | Link to this
I think Kim’s been drinking the Koolaid - the real estate market had nothing to do with this gross over-estimation, it’s just BS excuse. The real estate & loan markets do not create children. That same family that could not afford a house under this economic climate is sitting in an apartment - they didn’t disappear due to the sub-prime lending market collapse.
The school system made a huge error and their solution is to have the taxpayers eat it to the tune of several million bucks. Not very effective leadership by any standard. Same reason these individuals could not cut it in the private sector.
By Rachel
September 13, 2007 4:57 PM | Link to this
The current real estate market certainly does have an impact on Gwinnett schools. Look at your own neighborhoods - are houses selling? NO!
Another item you have to consider is the constant, negative press Gwinnett County has seen lately. If you were a family searching for good schools and neighborhoods - would you be shopping in South Gwinnett? Even in Brookwood, you still have an unsolved “suspicious death” in one of that clusters’ largest neighborhoods. Check the real estate listings , houses are not moving there either!
Gwinnett has a large problem when it comes to illegal immigration. Also, the recent publication of the SAT scores was nothing to write home about.
By JW
September 13, 2007 7:55 PM | Link to this
Pompano - Isn’t it the private sector that has created many of the problems this county faces (i.e. developers, mortgage/loan companies, etc.)? I wouldn’t be so quick to praise the private sector right now either. I do agree with you that GCPS is about to make a huge mistake by making some of these “extra” employees “full-time substitutes” as was recently reported. If you are going to pay them a teacher’s salary, leave them in the classrooms.
By Richard
September 13, 2007 9:41 PM | Link to this
Yes, it is true that the downturn in the real estate market may have an effect on the student population in the South Gwinnett cluster. When you analyze this fact, it doesn’t make sense. Builders are still building and buyers are still buying the new homes. There has been an increase in the # of single family homes in the area. That should lead to an increase of students. One factor that has not been discussed is the element of white flight. It was only a few years ago that there was a majority of white kids in the schools. The demographics have drastically changed and black kids are now in the majority. Due to this fact, many white families have either moved out or decided to home school or send their kids to private schools. This phenomenon is not unique to South Gwinnett, but is happening throughout the country. Englewood, New Jersey is a suburb of New York City that is approximately 55% black, but the public schools are over 90% black. The reason being is that because of perception, white families are not inclined to send their kids to schools that have a large minority population. The element of white flight must be discussed in this conversation, but the bearcats at the Board of Education will not touch that topic. I am interested to read the viewpoints of others regarding this politically incorrect subject. During the next few years, the student population of South Gwinnett will increase once again. More white families will sell their homes and flee to the northern burbs. Couple that with the fact that many more subdivisions will be built, leading to many more kids in the schools.
By D
September 14, 2007 12:25 AM | Link to this
I’m curious about something in the building plan for the Shiloh cluster — it says they’re getting a new elementary school and an addition to the middle and high schools. Are they realigning a cluster somewhere. I am currently districted to Norton elem in the South Cluster, but with Norton being forcasted to be double capacity in the next few years, it may be a good idea to move some out of that cluster. I certainly wouldn’t mind since the Shiloh schools are actually geographically closer to me than any South Gwinnett school.
By Michael H. Smith
September 14, 2007 5:52 AM | Link to this
Regarding this politically incorrect subject of skin colors in schools, some time back the AJC ran an article that dealt with black re-segregation in schools. So is it white flight?
I don’t think so.
This is something extracted from another news paper that is validly held throughout the science community.
This dialogue on race is driving me up the wall,'' said Jefferson Fish, a psychologist at St. John's University in New York who has written extensively about race in America.Nobody is asking the question, `What is race?’ It is a biologically meaningless category. It is a cultural term that Americans use to describe what a person’s ancestry is.
Perception if it is so, then it relies on prejudice and lies that have no bases found in science or specifically biology. Now watch how many people, even people you would think had the intelligence enough to accept science fact over uneducated traditional mutterings, speak and write as though they are promoting something that is real. Just read these blogs, it is so easy to pick up on:
People of other races…. people of ALL races…. people of other colors….
Why do the bureaucrats at the Board of Education not touch that topic? Because they are intelligent people who long ago have accepted science fact and realize until the others stop promoting falsehoods no truly honest discussion can begin. It’s amazing how people will stand upon science to defend evolution and they will run like “H” from that same science that tells them we are all of one race and that every person has a skin color.
Now Richard, do you think I’m going to be attacked for completely dispelling America’s love affair with multiple races and the phony construct of racism?
I’m not so much concerned about black flight or white flight as I am about our flight from the truth. We are all one big human family.
By sheree
September 14, 2007 12:27 PM | Link to this
I use to live in Snellville(as of 8/31/07) and if you think this cluster is not going through white flight, why don’t you ask my former neighbor. Better yet, ask the principal of South Gwinnett High, he said it himself las week. Seriously people, stop using your big words, statistics and quotes and Wake-Up!!!!
By Michael H. Smith
September 14, 2007 3:16 PM | Link to this
Using big words or using the bigger truth? People are not running from skin colors alone. The problems go far deeper. Acceptance and being accepted may seem like a small issue. It really isn’t. Unfortunately, when race is used to describe ancestry or skin colors are used to define us into a separate non-existing race, this only buries deeper substantive discussions from taking place at the surface level. There can be no doubt flight takes place, but why? Too often the easy way out is taken by calling what is taking place, white flight or black re-segregation, simply to make it a convenient package we can easily label.
Cultural differences do hold valid arguments. Content of character remains a reasonable benchmark. Failures to address students who fall behind early on and then give up because they just don’t get what is being taught to them in class that turn to bad conduct in a last resort to save esteem, to stay cool or hip, in order to feel they belong to something, even if it is the wrong thing. And the ease we all take in assigning any and all of this plus more to one or the other ancestry, when in fact, every ancestry in this country eventually carries the unwanted burdens that we ran from, which will weigh heavily in dragging down our county and country.
Now sheree, let’s see how many are willing to deal with the real issues on an ancestral bases as the human problems they are and not trumped up racial non-sense.
By Dave
September 17, 2007 10:25 AM | Link to this
We are a family in the Shiloh cluster. We have an elementary age son. We attended his curriculum night recently to meet his classmates, parents, and teachers. During the teacher’s discussion all of these events occurred: A mother took a phone call in the room. A woman arrived with three additional children in tow, not in that class. All three were left unattended to rummage through the room as the teacher was trying to discuss class rules, ironically. Another parent asked one of the children to please quiet down, prompting the mother to challenge “If you got a problem, we can settle this right now!” This was in the classroom, with all us present. Two parents got up and left while the teacher was speaking. There are 18 kids in the class. 6 parents showed up, including us.
We are attempting to sell our house to escape the influence of a demographic that, from what we have seen, cares very little for educating themselves and respecting other people.
What is the demographic?
By sheree
September 17, 2007 11:56 AM | Link to this
Dave, I am so sorry you had to go through that. I am a very active parent in my childrens schools(room parent for two years) and it saddens me to hear and witness this occuring. I wish I had a solution, but I would have to say this is one of the reasons we left this cluster. I know this can happen anywhere, but when you see the levels of incidences increasing each year, what else can you do? Michael, I agree with you on so many levels. But what do you do when you are constantly running into situations like Dave’s? What do you say? How do you not feel embarrassed? How do you pull that parent aside and gently encourage them to use proper etiquette? How do you avoid the backlash? It’s just became to much for my husband and I and we did not want our children’s education(as well as our property value) to suffer. How do we have an open discussion about behavior, civility and just plain ol’ commen sense? Can we first begin by pulling our pants up on Lenora Church Road?
By Mary
September 18, 2007 3:47 PM | Link to this
Something that bothers me about the trailers is that it has been discovered that some are not being used. There’s another waste of taxpayers’ money seeing as how the rent needs to be paid on them and they’re not being used.
By Sam Gillespie
September 19, 2007 6:55 PM | Link to this
Pampano:
You would be calling for the Superintendents resignation if he had not hired enough staff and there were a shortage of teachers. At least he erred on the side of caution.
By Ted
September 21, 2007 1:47 PM | Link to this
To Dave and Sheree:
In case you both live in boxes or choose to be ignorant towards “demographics” other than the one you all referred to let me enlighten you.
I live in the Brookwood cluster and there are members of the other “demogrpahic” that get bad grades, do drugs, and have sexual relations in school. And while one “demographic” may need to “pull their panths up” on Lenora Church Rd. the other demographic should wear their skirts longer on Oak Rd. instead of dressing like Paris Hilton wanna be’s.
By Julie M
September 22, 2007 9:03 AM | Link to this
Gwinnett County schools stink. I am homeschooling my kids. This county is ending up to be like DeKalb County schools where I went to school.
By KIM
September 26, 2007 11:43 AM | Link to this
Everyone is so frustrated with changes that do not result in positive outcomes. Sitting in a classroom for something as important as curriculum night and having a parent challenge you for wanting to hear the message is absurd. It is time for all responsible adults to express their outrage for all irresponsibility that hurts our children. Responsible adults are in all neighborhoods right next door to the irresponsible people. They are in every demographic: economics, cultures, education levels. Responsible people must be heard! Don’t be afraid to be reasonable and demand decorum.