DeKalb releases new options for dealing with overcrowded schools

The DeKalb County School District released “concepts” Tuesday for how it might deal with overcrowded schools in the northern part of the county.

It could take a more conservative approach and try to maintain traditional ways of doing things, such as limiting attendance boundary changes, or take a more aggressive or innovative approach to address future needs, such as converting a high school to a sixth- through 12th-grade campus. District officials are asking the community to continue weighing in as they work out the best way forward.

Just a few months ago the state’s third-largest district was considering a plan that would close roughly two dozen schools — but it hit pause on the entire process after significant community pushback.

Interim Superintendent Norman C. Sauce III said at a school board meeting Monday that the “concepts,” or potential changes, are not final.

“I wouldn’t want anybody to have the impression — and I want folks to hear me say this, play this tape back — do not have any misgivings that what you see ... is anywhere close to any final recommendations,” he said, going on to explain that they are “concepts” to inform future discussions. “Nothing more and nothing less.”

DeKalb is one of several school districts in metro Atlanta in recent years that has tried to address capacity issues.

Community members will have the chance to review the options and weigh in before another round of options are released. Final recommendations aren’t expected until after the feedback process concludes at the end of October.

The options released Tuesday are the latest step in DeKalb’s effort to deal with schools that are both overcrowded and underused. Called the Student Assignment Project, it’s an umbrella under which the district could close schools, change attendance boundaries, change which grades are served at a campus or change which academic programs are housed at which schools.

DeKalb has close to 20,000 vacant student seats across its schools, which means it’s not operating as efficiently as it could be to both save money and provide resources to the most students, district officials say.

Talks about how to deal with the capacity issues restarted this school year, with a focus on overcrowded schools in the northern part of the county first. The district is planning to open several schools in the area starting in 2027, meaning attendance zone changes in the area are already necessary. The overcrowded schools are those in the Lakeside, Cross Keys, Chamblee, Tucker, Dunwoody and Druid Hills clusters.

Attendance boundary changes for elementary and middle schools would go into effect in fall 2027. High school changes are likely to go into effect in fall 2029.

What the latest proposal says

In a 24-minute video presentation posted to its website Tuesday, DeKalb’s Director of Planning Hans Williams outlined the feedback the district has received so far, the current options its considering and how it identified them and the next steps in the process.

For elementary schools, the district has three minimum goals: to redistribute Cary Reynolds Elementary students into neighboring schools; to relieve severe overcrowding at Ashford Park Elementary and Montgomery Elementary; and to re-balance the Tucker cluster, which is still operating under a temporary boundary in place because of construction at Idlewood Elementary.

The district has come up with three options to meet those goals.

“Some options place greater weight on minimizing the impact on schools, on students and communities,” Williams said. “Others follow the primary criteria more strictly.”

The primary criteria set in district policy are geographic proximity, instructional capacity and projected enrollment.

For middle and high schools, the district’s minimum goals are to establish feeder patterns, grade configurations and magnet programs to include the new Sequoyah cluster; to relieve severe overcrowding at Sequoyah Middle, and to relieve severe overcrowding at Lakeside High and Dunwoody High.

To address these goals, the district could change which middle school students go to which high schools. Traditionally, the students in a middle school are zoned for the same high school. The district could establish “split feeds” from several middle schools, or maintain the one-to-one pattern by creating an additional middle school by changing the grade configurations at some schools or converting an elementary facility to a middle school. For example, Cross Keys High could be converted to serve grades six through 12. It could also be converted to serve grades eight through 12, with sixth and seventh graders attending an elementary school.