Druid Hills High modernization plan gets green light after years of debate

The DeKalb County Board of Education approved a plan to keep Druid Hills High School where it is and build almost an entirely new school at the campus.

The estimated $185 million project will still take three to four years to complete, but the vote on Monday was a big step after years of debate.

“Druid Hills needs this modernization,” said board member Andrew Ziffer ahead of the Monday night vote. “The data supports it, the policies support it and most importantly the students deserve it. They’ve deserved it for a very long time.”

The money for the project will come from the next round of funding from the Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax, which will be on the ballot for voters to approve in November 2026.

The school board in 2022 removed the school from a list of facilities it was planning to modernize. Within a few months, the school was back on the list after students published a video showcasing water-damaged ceilings and walls, electrical hazards and plumbing issues at the school.

Since then, district officials have been trying to figure out how to make it happen. Architects who evaluated the site at Haygood Drive near Emory University Hospital pointed out a host of problems that make it difficult and expensive to build there, including limited access for emergency vehicles and small square footage.

And in 2024, they revealed that those challenges would likely more than double the cost of the project. The district began evaluating whether it made more sense to build a new Druid Hills High School somewhere else and held multiple community input sessions about the various options.

But this week, the school board officially put an end to the debate: Druid Hills High is staying put. The historic front office building will be renovated, and the rest of the school will be torn down. A brand new four-story academic building and a two-story parking garage with an athletic field on top will take their place. The new school should be able to accommodate 1,600 students, compared to the current enrollment of about 1,450.

The tentative plan for Druid Hills High would be to demolish all of the existing buildings except for the main historic building, and replace them with a new four-story academic building. (Image courtesy DeKalb County School District)

The decision wasn’t unanimous. Board members Diijon DaCosta and Tiffany Hogan raised concerns about the large price tag possibly hindering the completion of projects at other DeKalb schools with needs of their own.

“I’m asking the board to honestly make a decision on how we allocate resources amongst the north, south, east and west of DeKalb County,” DaCosta said.

Similarly, Hogan had concerns about the timeline. The district is currently working through the student assignment planning process — a monthslong project in which a committee evaluates the utilization of schools and recommends whether to change attendance zones or the academic programs offered.