Seven Atlanta schools will close next year and boundaries will move at dozens of others after the school board approved a controversial redistricting plan late Tuesday night.
More than 500 people, some carrying signs and chanting in protest, packed the school board meeting to dissuade board members from closing schools. Originally, 10 schools were slated for closure, but the board decided to close Parks and Kennedy middle schools and Capitol View, White, Cook, East Lake and Herndon elementary schools.
The goal of what could be the largest redistricting in almost a decade is to make better use of Atlanta Public Schools' funding by eliminating empty seats, said Superintendent Erroll Davis, who presented the plan. APS has enough seats to serve 60,000 students but has roughly 47,000 enrolled in traditional schools. Consolidating schools, Davis said, would allow the district to devote more resources to students.
But several community members voiced concern about how closures would impact communities. Parents and students who opposed the plan waved signs and chanted “NO SCHOOLS CLOSE!” The meeting had to be stopped twice because of outbursts from the audience. One man was thrown out of the meeting, and then tackled by Atlanta Police officers as he ran on stage approaching the school board from behind.
“We don’t want you to leave our communities in a situation where our property [values] go down more, and then we have nothing to offer for people to move into our neighborhood,” said Stacy Merkerson, a parent and grandparent of students at Towns Elementary, which was slated to close under the original proposal.
Several parents raised concerns about last-minute changes to the plan – two elementary schools, D.H. Stanton and Towns were placed on the closure list March 31, when students were on spring break. The board decided to keep those schools and F.L. Stanton Elementary open after a groundswell of support from the community.
"Towns was put on at the end and it was wrong to put it on at the end," said Pastor Kenneth Augustus Walker. "But I want to give the board credit, because it was a tough decision. They did the right thing."
At-large board member Courtney English said it was important for the district to have a plan for how these closed schools would be used, and what proposed academic enhancements would look like.
A committee has been formed to come up with ideas to reuse empty schools. But English said the district has reneged on promises to repurpose buildings before. APS has 14 empty school buildings, some of which closed in the 1970s.
“Asking people to trust us, considering what APS has been through… is a long stretch,” English said. “We can’t just leave this out there for someone to pick up five, six, seven years from now. Let’s do it and do it right.”
This redistricting has been in the works for almost two years, Superintendent Davis said. It started with a demographic study, has included numerous revised scenarios and been the subject of more than 100 meetings, almost 70 of which occurred in the last month.
Davis encouraged board members to make a decision Tuesday, saying the district needed to settle the matter in order to move forward with budgeting and planning.
“We will implement whatever your decision is,” he told the board. “But we need to have a decision made here today. We would like to end this multi-year process and move forward.”
Davis said the district could save more than $500,000 per closed school. The district loses funding for some schools where enrollment is too low to qualify for the state contribution. Consolidating schools could increase resources for students across the district.
Money saved from school closures will not be used to fill a multimillion budget gap projected next year, Davis said. Instead, it will be reinvested into schools. Every school will be given an assistant principal, social workers will visit schools on a regular basis, and a nurse will be in every building five days a week.
Board members discussed the plan for more than two hours before hearing from more than 60 parents and community members for almost four hours. But the public hearing disintegrated just after 8 p.m. when Davis stepped out for a break. After five minutes, chants of “We Want Erroll Davis” erupted and speakers refused to continue.
After the board called a five-minute break, the meeting resumed with more cries for the board to keep schools open.
Alexus Means, an eighth-grader at King Middle, said the board and superintendent should try to figure out why some neighborhoods are losing enrollment.
“I think that our superintendent and board members are more focused on how we can close schools instead of focusing on how can we save these schools,” she said.
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