A new Atlanta school, to be created by merging Fain and Towns elementary schools, will be called Harper-Archer Elementary School.
The school will open in the fall of 2019 at what is now Harper-Archer Middle School. That building will receive a roughly $9.2 million, largely interior renovation that will begin this year to get it ready it for the new elementary school.
The changes are part of Atlanta Public Schools' plan to turn around struggling schools. Fain and Towns are among the low-performing schools that the district is aiming to improve -- in this case, through consolidation and the creation of a new school. Students who currently attend Harper-Archer Middle School will go to John Lewis Invictus Academy.
The Harper-Archer name, which pays homage to two former Atlanta high schools, was unanimously approved by the school board Monday. Board members in February authorized the appointment of Towns principal Dione Simon Taylor as the principal of the new elementary school.