APS unveils new rezoning plan with possible annex for Morningside kindergarten campus

Some residences in the Morningside Elementary School will be rezoned from the Grady High School feeder pattern to the North Atlanta High School feeder pattern under a proposal Atlanta Public Schools officials are considering.

Some residences in the Morningside Elementary School will be rezoned from the Grady High School feeder pattern to the North Atlanta High School feeder pattern under a proposal Atlanta Public Schools officials are considering.

Atlanta Public Schools could look for a building to house kindergartners enrolled at Morningside Elementary School as part of a revised proposal to rezone a portion of the Grady High School cluster.

The school board had been expected to vote Monday on a rezoning plan opposed by parents that would redraw school attendance boundaries along the Cheshire Bridge and Armour Drive corridors so that those addresses were assigned to the North Atlanta High School feeder pattern. But instead, the board will consider a scaled-back rezoning recommendation that APS administrators said Friday would affect roughly 40 currently enrolled students, not the 100 that would have been rezoned as part of the initial proposal.

The recommendation asks for authorization to negotiate for an annex site to serve Morningside kindergartners, in an effort to ease pressure on the packed school. The district likely would look for an existing building near the school to lease, said Erica Long, special assistant to the superintendent.

The plan still rezones the Armour Drive corridor, which would belong to the North Atlanta cluster, as well as unoccupied property at 1989 Cheshire Bridge Road that is being developed into an apartment complex. But the new proposal to be voted on Monday would not rezone other portions of the Cheshire Bridge corridor where families currently reside. The superintendent, in a Friday letter to parents, cautioned APS will have to rezone that area if it cannot find an annex site to relieve Morningside overcrowding.