The head of Decatur City Schools has found a home. Although he wanted to live inside the school district, he had to settle on one about two miles north of the city limits, even though it has a Decatur address.
Superintendent David Dude’s housing became a topic of public discussion after a May school board meeting when Chair Annie Caiola suggested the board consider “a housing stipend or subsidy to allow our superintendent to live in Decatur.”
Since Dude become Decatur’s 10th superintendent in November, his family of five has lived in a rented home in Oakhurst. Early on Dude expressed a desire to find permanent quarters within city limits because of his “fundamental belief” that he needed to live within his district. Living within Decatur city limits isn’t a condition of employment, however.
“I can better understand about what’s going on in the community,” he said in May. “I can talk more informally to people, I can interact with them.”
But he also said at that time purchasing property within city limits “doesn’t look feasible.” During that May meeting the board informally discussed several possibilities, including raising the superintendent’s housing stipend or, as a temporary solution, allowing him to rent one of two houses owned by the school system.
Dude has a three-year contract the first year calling for $179,000 annual salary not counting a $1,500 monthly housing stipend and a potential $10,000 performance bonus.
The AJC reported in May that the average four-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home in Decatur sold for $717,546 in the previous six months and the average condo or townhome with three or four bedrooms sold for $649,952.
Housing prices in comparable school districts with single-city jurisdictions and similar enrollments — Buford and Marietta — averaged considerably less.
In the previous six months the average four-bedroom, three-bathroom single-family home sold for $414,680 in Marietta and $346,629 in Buford. Both Buford Superintendent Geye Hamby and Marietta Superintendent Emily Lembeck live within their districts.
“Folks who move [to Decatur] from the suburbs often get shell shocked,” said veteran Decatur realtor Frank Golley. “Not only by the prices, but how small the lots are. The term ‘McMansion’ is really a misnomer in Decatur. The larger houses here are about 3,200 square feet, while 4,000 and 5,000 is nothing outside the perimeter.”
He said he could understand why Dude wanted to live in Decatur.
“Here you get to know your neighbors, you can participate in [civic] meetings, you interact with city commissioners and school board members and you get a terrific school system,” said Golley. “But we all pay for that.”
Dude said Thursday he had actually considered a two-bedroom, one-bath home if it meant staying in Decatur. In the end, however, he found a roomier house “for considerably less” than what he would’ve paid within city limits.
Although there’s no way of knowing definitively, it appears Decatur’s first eight superintendents, from 1901 to 2003, lived within city limits. Dude’s predecessor, Phyllis Edwards, lived in Avondale Estates and later Stone Mountain.
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