When Atlanta Public Schools students headed back to school Monday, some arrived at schools without fully functioning air conditioning or enough textbooks.
The air conditioning outages were limited to about 12 buildings and none were building-wide, APS spokesman James Malone said. “Temporary cooling units” were brought in to cool affected areas used by students or staff.The district expects the number of outages to decrease today and throughout the week, he said.
But isolated A/C outages and longings for more summer vacation aside, for most students in Atlanta and other metro school districts starting Monday, the first day of school took place without major problems, district officials said late Monday afternoon.
Students in Atlanta, Cherokee County, Cobb County and Decatur schools began school Monday. Gwinnett County students will head back Tuesday. And students in Clayton, DeKalb, Forsyth and Fulton counties will head back in the coming days.
Atlanta
"Overall it was a pretty smooth day here in the district," Malone said. "In years past that was not the case."
Most calls into the district’s Day One Command Center were from parents checking bus schedules or attendance zones, Malone said. Call volumes were much lower than in past years, he said.
While some APS schools did not have enough textbooks for students Monday, APS has already received new middle school math and science textbooks and expects to receive others by early October, Malone said. He noted too that in Atlanta schools, as in many schools nationwide, teachers no longer rely only on printed textbooks for instruction. They use resources including websites and other online resources, worksheets and other materials, too.
Cobb
In Cobb County, “visual and anecdotal evidence” suggests enrollment could be much higher than anticipated, communications director Jay Dillon said. “We are expecting more than 111,000 students total, but from what we have seen we may be above that already,” he said.
District officials will have a better idea of enrollment numbers by Tuesday afternoon, Dillon said. If necessary, Cobb will hire additional teachers to accommodate the enrollment increase.
Cherokee
Cherokee County saw an increase of more than 680 students on the first day of school compared to last year, according to preliminary enrollment numbers. Total first-day enrollment reached 39,460. That includes more than 270 students who transferred from a local charter school. It puts the district on track to top its enrollment projection of more than 40,000 students by the 20th day of school, communications director Barbara Jacoby said.
Monday was also opening day for Cherokee’s newest school, M.A. Teasley Middle School. The school serves students in grades 6-8 and replaces a school that served students in grades 7-8.
Decatur
Decatur too saw an enrollment increase, with more than 4,420 students arriving on the first day of school, district spokeswoman Courtney Burnett said.
The district’s newest school, Westchester Elementary, reopened about a decade after it was closed. The school will enroll about 230 students, Burnett said. Westchester is on busy Scott Boulevard.
“We’re really encouraging people to slow down and pay attention to the little kids on the street there,” Burnett said. “It’ll take a little while for the people to drive that regularly to get used to the school zones.”
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