Parents again voice concerns about Atlanta schools redistricting effort

By Ernie Suggs

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The Atlanta Public School’s redistricting battle continued to simmer Monday night as dozens of local parents packed the school board meeting to protest plans to re-draw school boundary lines.

Last week, hundreds of parents attended four community meetings, marking redistricting as a capstone issue under the current school board. Like those meetings, concerned parents showed up in t-shirts and carried signs. Those who didn't fit in the main chamber watched the meeting from an overflow room.

Parent after parent, and neighborhood after neighborhood addressed the school board with a version of one central theme – “don’t move my child.”

“Our neighborhood is .7 miles from Brandon Morris Elementary School. Now, I am concerned that children will have to go three or four miles to go to school,” said Jeremy Moeser. “It doesn’t make practical sense.”

For the first time in a decade, the APS is attempting to redistrict schools, to better manage space and finances. There are about 49,000 students enrolled in APS, although the system has enough space for 62,000.

While some schools in the district are overcrowded, others are as little as 20 percent full.

Under the two new proposals that APS is now considering, about a dozen schools will close and new schools will be built to relieve crowding in North Atlanta.

“I don’t want to give either option too much credit,” said Eric Rubenstein, whose pre-school child would go to Mary Lin Elementary School. One of the proposals would move some students form Mary Lin to Toomer Elementary School.

“Lin has been promised expansion for years,” Rubenstein said. “Build the schools where the kids are and don’t break up neighborhoods. Everyone on this room wants what is best for our kids."

Demographers, who put together the plans, will revise them based on community feedback and submit that version to APS Superintendent Erroll Davis.

Davis is expected to present those findings to the school board in the spring.