Parents of DeKalb Elementary School for the Arts students are crying foul after being informed, after several delays, the children will finally move into the old Avondale Elementary School building, but will share it with Smoke Rise Elementary.
School officials said Wednesday that the DESA students, of which there are about 500, will move into the building in December. Smoke Rise, which has about 400 students, will move in at the beginning of the 2016-2017 school year for, at most, a two-year stay.
Information about the move was shared with the DESA community in a meeting at the school, 797 Fayetteville Road, Wednesday night.
The school’s current building has been designated for the performing-arts school, which houses students from kindergarten through seventh grade, for several years. Moving was delayed once as Fernbank Elementary School used the space as temporary housing while its new building was being constructed. The current building occupied by DESA has plumbing, temperature-control and other problems typically associated with an old building.
Much of the parents’ complaint with the moves, DESA parent Shevondah Leslie said, is that DESA parents were among the last to know, finding out at a parent council meeting Tuesday.
“But Smoke Rise parents have known about this since May,” she said.
If there was an opportunity to house multiple schools in the building, she said, why couldn’t the DESA students move into the building with the Fernbank students?
“I felt like they were being dishonest with us about what was going on,” she said. “When they told us we were going to a newer school, we were excited about that. Now, we feel tossed aside. (In this matter), we don’t have a voice.”
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