Gwinnett County school board members are scheduled to vote today on a plan to close and sell two schools with about 175 special-needs students and transfer the children to other schools, to the dismay of some parents.
School district officials want to sell the six acres where the Buice School sits to the city of Sugar Hill, which is the early stages of a downtown development plan, for $2.5 million. Buice serves preschool and pre-kindergarten children. Gwinnett also plans to sell the Hooper Renwick School in Lawrenceville to that city for $4.1 million. Gwinnett will buy some land from Lawrenceville for about $1 million.
Some parents, though, use words like “home” to describe the schools, and they don’t want Gwinnett to hand over the keys.
“This isn’t just a piece of land being sold,” said Maggie Wright, who has a 4-year-old daughter with autism, Isabelle, who attends Buice. “It’s a huge transition for these kids. Some of them could totally shut down and regress.”
Wright and some other Buice parents said in an interview Wednesday with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Channel 2 Action News that the school has helped their children immensely. Isabelle recognizes her name and interacts better with others. Three-year-old Vincent Magliochetti can put together sentences. Sidney Burks, 3, is friendlier and makes better eye contact.
“She’s come out of her shell,” said Sidney’s mother, Shalonda Burks, who moved from Roswell last summer so her daughter could attend Buice.
The parents worry their children won’t improve the same way in other schools. Gwinnett officials say the children will get a quality education.
Gwinnett officials said the main reason for their plans is to create continuity for the students once they enter an elementary school, as opposed to being in a stand-alone program or school. Buice is the district’s only stand-alone pre-K program. Gwinnett moved special-needs pre-K students from the Monarch School at the end of the 2013-14 school year.
“The schools will follow each student’s” Individualized Education Program “and focus on providing a quality education to these students,” Gwinnett officials said via email.
Some Buice parents counter that Monarch School parents had about two years to prepare for their children’s transition. The Buice parents said they learned about the plans to close the school in a Feb. 20 letter from the principal.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen. We never saw anything beforehand,” said Ron Magliochetti, Vincent’s father.
County records show the Buice property was donated to Gwinnett in 2003. During the 1950s, Hooper Renwick was the only school black students were allowed to attend in Gwinnett. It was closed in 1964 after integration. It reopened in 1995 to serve special-needs students.
Sugar Hill leaders are reticent to talk about the property since it is in a potential real estate transaction, but they say it would be a great addition to downtown. It sits near the city's community center and City Hall. New businesses and entertainment centers are in the works, the AJC recently reported.
Sugar Hill City Manager Paul Radford said he understands both sides of the debate.
“I’m sympathetic” to the parents. “I understand their passion,” Radford said. “I also put my trust in a Gwinnett County school board that knows what they’re doing.”
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