At a crowded meeting Monday night at Maynard Jackson High School, Atlanta Public Schools Superintendent Meria Carstarphen explained to sometimes skeptical east Atlanta parents why closing two schools would benefit their children.
Among the schools APS proposes to close next year are two in the Jackson cluster: Benteen and Whitefoord elementaries. East Atlanta has already seen the closing of Coan Middle and East Lake Elementary, both of which remain empty.
By closing the schools and consolidating them with nearby elementary schools, Carstarphen said more services and staffs could be provided to all the students. With enrollments of around 300, both Benteen and Whitefoord fall well below the desired elementary school enrollment of 500, she said.
Parents in gentrifying east Atlanta have seen their share of school closings and re-configuring, which has not been the case for the midtown/Virginia-Highland/Morningside communities. One parent asked Carstarphen: Why not redraw all the lines so kids in the crowded schools in more affluent neighborhoods could fill some of the empty seats in the Jackson cluster?
Carstarphen did not pretend there was a logic to the school zones she found when she arrived at APS in 2014 or that politics and race have not played a role in creating crowded schools in some areas and half-empty ones in others. She is still trying to make sense of a system that often defies reason, she said.
But, she said, redrawing the entire district was a major undertaking that would entail massive community involvement and she had immediate resource problems to resolve.
To read more about the meeting, go to the AJC Get Schooled blog.
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