When the city of Atlanta annexes land and expands its boundaries, do the Atlanta Public Schools follow suit?
That's the question the Georgia Supreme Court will try to answer after hearing oral arguments Monday.
In a lawsuit against the Atlanta Public Schoools the city of Atlanta claims that it should be able to grow, but that APS should not. According to the city, an old constitutional amendment that calls for APS to expand its boundaries when the city does is unconstitutional.
But a lower court ruled with the school system, meaning that for now, the school system gets bigger as the city does.
The issue is of particular interest as Atlanta recently annexed portions of previously unincorporated Fulton.
APS and the Fulton County Schools argued that Atlanta was apparently concerned that going to APS "could be an impediment to future annexations in Fulton County." The city's argument, they say, is "based entirely on an improper, hyper-technical interpretation" of the law.
APS also argued that the city shouldn’t be able to sue it in the first place, because it’s a political subdivision of the state, which has sovereign immunity. It said, too, that it was unclear whether the city had the legal authority two complete three proposed annexations that would have affected the school district.
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