The Cherokee County School Board has approved a boundary change that would move the expected student population from a 1,800-home development from the Free Home to Ball Ground elementary school attendance area.
“Free Home ES is currently operating at 126 percent of the building’s capacity and does not have the additional capacity to contain the projected impact from this development,” according to an agenda item summary for the Dec. 1 school board meeting.
Free Home reported a 20th day enrollment of 314 students and, with portable classrooms, had space to accommodate 87 percent of them, while Ball Ground had 508 students and was at 43 percent of capacity, according to the Cherokee school district’s 2016-17 Inventory of School Housing.
The two schools have children in kindergarten through 5th grade, and they and their namesake communities are about 10 miles apart. The project’s developer requested the change, the summary noted, and shifting children to Ball Ground would not affect any currently enrolled Cherokee school district students.
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