Fulton County Schools plans to expand Palmetto Elementary School so that the site also serves middle school students.
Officials want to convert the Carlton Road campus in south Fulton County into a kindergarten through eighth grade school starting in fall 2025. It will specialize in STEAM programming, or science, technology, engineering, the arts and math.
“It’s a model that evidence says can be good for kids and good for our communities,” said Cliff Jones, chief academic officer, at a Tuesday school board meeting.
The Palmetto site previously housed a high school before it became an elementary school serving students through fifth grade. That means it has the room — such as cafeteria space and outdoor fields — to hold more students in older grades, officials said.
Last year, Palmetto enrolled just over 300 students, making it one of the district’s smallest schools.
Jones said the K-8 model allows children to remain in the same school longer. That provides stability and helps build closer relationships with teachers, which can boost parent engagement and students’ academic performance, he said.
Palmetto Elementary is one of four schools that feed into Bear Creek Middle School. Officials said expanding Palmetto would reduce the need for a larger redistricting of Bear Creek, one of the south Fulton middle schools with the highest enrollment.
Fulton is in the midst of a widespread redistricting effort to balance enrollments and capacity issues at schools throughout the district. That work is expected to result in shifting attendance boundaries in some neighborhoods, though officials have yet to propose any new maps.
A district spokesman said proceeding with a K-8 conversion does not require board approval at this point, though board members will provide input as the plan moves forward. Eventually, the board will vote on related components of the plan, such as construction contracts to renovate the building. Funding for that would come from the system’s one-cent sales tax.
District 4 board member Franchesca Warren, who represents Palmetto, praised the K-8 plan.
“I’ve had nothing but great feedback from the community about this and lots of excitement,” she said.
Officials have considered reconfiguring schools on the district’s north side into the K-8 model, but said they want to gather additional public input before making more recommendations.
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