After declining to use Atlanta’s East Lake Elementary as a temporary solution for its enrollment overflow, City Schools Decatur announced this week the addition of 16 more modular units throughout the district next school year.
Six each will go to the 4/5 Academy at Fifth Avenue and Decatur High School, and four will go to south side elementary schools, though it’s not determined how they’ll be divided between Oakhurst and Winnona Park.
Cost is not to exceed $2.3 million. These additions will bring the total to 36 modulars district-wide by August.
On the surface East Lake appeared a far cheaper solution than adding more modulars. But Dude said during this week’s school board meeting, that when he began looking deeper those costs differentials narrowed considerably.
“When you start adding up expenses like transportation, food services, nurses, installing technology and adding a library,” he said, “there wasn’t a huge financial incentive. Plus parents didn’t like the idea of their children going off to another school [outside the district].”
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