When DeKalb County officials first conceived of Arabia Mountain High School, they meant to relieve crowded campuses in one of metro Atlanta’s most booming suburbs.
Then the boom went bust. Enrollment eased. And the public school, which is located outside I-285 in southeast DeKalb, opened last month with a very different plan: A state-of-the-art, $48-million facility boasting some of the newest and most challenging high school magnet programs open to students countywide. If they decided to come.
Now, seven weeks since opening, enrollment at DeKalb’s newest high school is on target with 1,016 students in grades 9-11. The school will add a senior class next year, bringing it to about 1,400.
Officials wanted a rigorous school. Students say they got it — uniforms are required; homework is assigned each day; and team practices stop at 6 p.m. to give students time to go home and finish assignments.
It seems a far cry from the usual.
“I attended Stephenson [High] and the environment there was more extracurricular-based,” said Michael Lee Jr., a new Arabia sophomore. “They’re building an intellectual community. It’s meaning to bring up DeKalb.”
As federal authorities discuss revamping national education law, the current one has exposed a deficiency: Only 30 percent of DeKalb’s 22 high schools met federal testing goals this year. It was 39 percent in 2008.
As DeKalb officials redesign the curriculum at other schools to try to get them on track, Arabia has given DeKalb authorities a chance to build a school community from scratch. They hope it becomes a model.
“We’ve been challenged to increase the rigor,” Arabia school Principal Angela Pringle said. “The children are having to stretch. It’s sort of like preparing for a marathon.”
Three-quarters of Arabia’s new students are freshmen or sophomores more willing to migrate from their neighborhood campus. About 50 students come from either a home-school environment or private school.
A majority of the students come from nearby communities, others from farther away. Pringle said she has kids from every high school in DeKalb.
Some, like Michael, get up extraordinarily early every morning — in his case, early enough to catch a shuttle bus in Stone Mountain at 6:15 a.m.
Others, like junior Jameka Rayford, live in Lithonia. She is able to hop in her car and drive 25 minutes to campus.
“I think everyone’s reason is the same [for enrolling at Arabia],” Jameka said. “We will be more prepared for college.”
Now, the challenge may be to stay the course. Arabia, which includes a regular education program for neighborhood students, is the first high school DeKalb has opened as a magnet.
Others in the county, such as academic powerhouse Chamblee High School in north DeKalb, first opened as an entirely neighborhood campus.
According to Pat Copeland, DeKalb’s coordinator of magnet and theme programs, it took two rounds of marketing last spring to get a strong enough response that officials thought would fill the school. Some of the hesitation appears to be the school’s location in a far corner of the county. But it’s one heck of a campus.
Arabia is one of the first public schools in the state with a national certification for environmental construction and perhaps the only one with an environmentally themed curriculum.
It is a deliberate choice: The campus sits near the Arabia Mountain national heritage area, which comprises thousands of acres of protected green space.
Among the school’s highlights are an extensive use of glass and large windows, since research has shown a correlation between children’s access to natural light and higher test scores. Classrooms are also outfitted with the latest technology, including interactive whiteboards — as big as chalkboards but connected to the Internet.
All subjects are infused with the nationally standardized EIC (Environment as an Integrating Context) curriculum for learning. Teachers use the environment as a backdrop for their lessons.
Pringle said the school accepted 162 students for a magnet program concentrating on environmental, energy and engineering studies. Another magnet program, expected to open next year, would be centered on health and medical interests.
A third program emphasizes “career technology,” including the culinary arts, finance and business.
A lot of the work is hands-on and performance-related, where students must demonstrate they can do a lesson. It is a demand that has caught students’ attention, Jameka said.
“I think it’s going to pay off. That’s what is driving me,” she said.
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