DeKalb to close four schools, cut administrators

By Megan Matteucci

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

DeKalb County’s superintendent said he will cut about 15 top administrators and close four schools to help with the district’s $88 million deficit.

“We can no longer afford to operate schools which are at half capacity,” Superintendent Crawford Lewis told about 100 business leaders Friday at his State of the System address.

With 152 schools, DeKalb has the most school buildings in the state -- despite being the third-largest district and closing five schools in 2008, Lewis said.

Next week, school officials will identify the four elementary schools that will close at the end of the school year in May. They plan to close another eight to 10 schools in May 2011.

The schools will be selected out of the 29 schools with enrollments of less than 300 students. District officials are taking a look at schools in south DeKalb: The student enrollments in that area have dropped, and Dunwoody's student enrollment has become the county's fastest growing, Lewis said.

The Citizens Planning Task Force, a group of 20 residents appointed by school board members, will work with school officials to make a recommendation on which schools to close. The board will then vote on the final closings, school system spokesman Dale Davis said.

Last year, DeKalb’s enrollment grew by about 1,500 students to 101,000 children.

The school closings will allow the district to save about $2.5 million. Teachers from those schools will move with their students and be allowed to keep their jobs, but some other staff may be affected, Davis said.

The closings will mean the district will have to redraw the attendance boundaries and reroute buses before school starts in August.

The school closures are part of a systemwide trimming to meet a loss in state funding and property tax revenue.

“We are working really, really hard not to raise anyone’s taxes,” Lewis said.

Last month, Lewis proposed a series of program cuts, staff furloughs and other reductions to meet what officials thought was a $56 million deficit. He now is scrambling to identify $32 million more to cut from next year’s budget after learning the county’s property values dove 6.7 percent.

“This year’s budget will go back to the figure we had in 2005. That kind of tells you exactly how bad things are,” Lewis said.

In December, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that DeKalb lost $1.8 billion in appraised residential value, more than any other county in the metro area. DeKalb, Fulton, Clayton, Cobb and Gwinnett counties lost a combined $4.2 billion in devaluation.

For the past few years, Atlanta has been closing about one school each year, mainly because of severe underenrollment. With the exception of the Buckhead area, enrollment has mostly been down in the Atlanta Public Schools district. Last year, Atlanta closed C.W. Hill Elementary. Earlier this month, the district announced that it would build a new high school in Buckhead and convert North Atlanta High School into a second middle school to relieve overcrowding at Sutton Middle.

No school closings have been discussed at Cobb County Schools, said Jay Dillon, the district’s spokesman. “We are still very early in our budget process.”

Gwinnett County Public Schools, the state’s largest district, is still growing. In August 2010, the district will open eight new schools.

In DeKalb County, Lewis said he will unveil the additional proposed cuts next Friday.

“There will be layoffs in these cuts. I don’t anticipate cutting any teachers at the local level,” he said. “But there is no way for me to come back to the board with an $88 million deficit and no layoffs.”

Most of those job losses will be at the central office, including narrowing his cabinet of 27 administrators down to about 12, Lewis said.

Some of those administrators will be able to apply for principal and teaching positions, but others will be out of a job.

“It’s important now that every salary counts,” he said.

The district has about 14,000 full-time employees, including 8,000 teachers.

The proposed administrative cuts come less than a week after the AJC reported that the district posted a job to replace a deputy superintendent of teaching and learning for $163,900 while calling for teacher pay cuts.

The other staff in his cabinet will see pay cuts, Lewis said.

However, the superintendent does not plan to give back the $15,000 raise and contract extension that the board approved in January. Lewis told business leaders that the raise comes after he lost $30,000 in salary and bonuses last year.

“I don’t think $15,000 is going to have a profound impact on an $88 million deficit,” he added.

On Friday, Lewis said some programs will be cut, but he is reconsidering his proposal to get rid of magnet schools and the Montessori program.

“We’re trying to do what’s right for the children, but we have to do it with the resources we have,” he said.

Staff writers Aileen Dodd and Kristina Torres contributed to this article.