School for at-risk students likely to close

Some students say they’ll return to the schools they attended before transferring to Oakwood, just south of Marietta. Some are checking out different programs. Some may drop out.

And then there are students like Zack Turnbull, who came to Oakwood from Walton High School. “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Life is just as uncertain for the teachers, who are awaiting transfers.

“This is what I love,” said Cara Hawkins, an Oakwood art teacher for the past seven years. “I love the people here, too.”

But love cannot balance the budget. The Cobb County Board of Education, hard-pressed to keep the schools operating in the black, is likely to close the school to save money. The board will make its final decision in June.

Meantime, those who love Oakwood wait and wonder.

$2 million decision

Cobb’s educational administrators needed to cut nearly $127 million from next academic year’s proposed $819.3 million budget. Their gaze rested on Oakwood. It’s a nontraditional school, lacking sports, a cafeteria or even school bus services. According to county records, 159 students — most of whom haven’t fit well in other academic settings — were enrolled at Oakwood this school year.

Budget analysts recommended that it close. Its 31 employees would be reassigned to schools across the county, and Oakwood’s students would be offered different programs to continue their educations. The change would save nearly $2 million.

It’s a bottom-line recommendation. Oakwood’s operating costs last fiscal year totaled slightly more than $3 million — a fraction of what was reported at larger high schools, whose operating costs exceed $10 million. But its per-student costs outstrip those at the larger schools — $18,000 per Oakwood student vs. $4,900 at Pope, for example.

On April 22, the board approved the analysts’ recommendations, which included systemwide layoffs. Those recommendations encompassed cuts across the system, and included staff as well as programs. Oakwood, along with other educational initiatives, had to go.

The news was so unexpected, say teachers and students, that no one believed it at first. Surely it was a rumor?

When she learned the rumor was true, Hawkins took the news hard. Seven years ago, she’d been reluctant to come to the school after administrators transferred her from Lassiter High. Oakwood, with its reputation of having troubled kids, was her last choice of schools.

“At the time, I cried,” she said.

Then her husband died, and Hawkins found at Oakwood a community of support she never anticipated. The school for misfits, she learned, fit her perfectly.

She spent last week clearing out her classroom and desk. She and her peers also found time to make custom T-shirts to underscore the change in their lives, and those of their students. Each shirt features the numeral “31,” a reminder of the number of Oakwood employees.

‘Taking it away’

Jesse Hepler, who wants to be an automotive technician, is typical. He came to Oakwood last year from Sprayberry, where he routinely cut classes and was in danger of flunking out. At Oakwood, which has a stringent absentee policy, Hepler got serious. When he learned the school might close, “I was upset.”

Ctarik Curry nodded. He came to Oakwood from Campbell, where he struggled academically.

“We went out of our way to come here,” he said. “And now they’re taking it away from us.”

If Oakwood closes, Cobb education officials say, three programs would take over:

● Oakwood Digital Academy, an online school stressing reading, writing, math and the sciences. It would teach as many as 180 students.

● Ombudsman Academic Services, a nationwide digital educational specialist, would oversee the digital academy and enroll 40 more students in its online program.

● Cobb’s Performance Learning Center would enroll more than 50 students. The center has a low student-teacher ratio and offers self-paced instruction.

These aren’t easy choices, said Lynnda Crowder-Eagle, who chairs the school board. She wishes Oakwood could remain open, but doubts that will happen. The system, she noted, has laid off 579 educators.

“Unfortunately, efficiency-wise, we can’t do it [anymore],” she said. “We’re just not able to.”

Hard choices

Alison Bartlett, a school board member whose district includes Oakwood, is opposed to closing the school, “but I’m just one voice, and I don’t see the others changing their votes.”

The board will make its final decision June 9.

Bartlett, who teaches math in Douglas County, said the lingering recession has forced metro Atlanta school districts to make choices they’ve never faced. “For all school systems, this is a brand-new world,” she said. “Cobb has always had plenty of money before.”

Like some of her constituents, Bartlett is rankled with the board for not taking more time before deciding to close Oakwood. It should have held public hearings to allow more people to offer their opinions, she said.

“I guess we don’t have the same view of life” as the rest of the board, she said.

A look back

Sisters Lulu and Corina Echevarria spent their final Oakwood days looking back. Lulu, 16, and Corina, 19, collected photos and video taken at the school, and created a video yearbook. It was their first, and just in time: It documents the school’s last year.

A soundtrack provides a pulsing background. One tune, from B.o.B. and Hayley Williams, is timely:

I could really use a wish right now, right now...

Corina graduated Friday. She plans to join the Navy, following the career path her parents took years earlier.

Lulu? She has a year or longer in school, and does not want to spend it at Kell, the school she and her sister previously attended.

“I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said. She bit her lip, thought a moment. “Maybe get my GED?”

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Metro Atlanta school budget woes

Schools across the Atlanta area are slashing their budgets. Here’s how they are making ends meet:

Atlanta Public Schools

● The board unanimously adopted a $589 million budget earlier this month.

● How they cut: Class sizes will increase by two to four students and teachers will have two furlough days. A 10 percent cut has been ordered for each division. The district expects to trim 400 jobs, mostly through attrition.

Cherokee County

● Expected deficit: $27.9 million

● How they plan to cut: 173 positions: 62.5 teaching/certified position, but with retirements and resignation only three will be laid off. Will lay off 110.5 paraprofessionals, clerks, bus drivers and support staff.

● What’s next: Superintendent proposes four employee furlough days and a 1 mil tax increase, which will raise $6.8 million. The increase will cost the owner of a $150,000 house about $58 a year in taxes. Budget decisions will be made in June and possibly finalized July 28.

Clayton County

● Expected deficit: $40.8 million

● How they plan to cut: Reducing the number of school days by five, eliminating summer school for elementary and middle school, shrinking the superintendent’s cabinet by three positions and trimming transportation to charter schools.

● What’s next: The board has a work session Monday.

Cobb County

● Expected deficit: $126.7 million

● How they plan to cut: Increasing class sizes, cutting 734 jobs, including 579 teaching positions and 56 paraprofessionals, furloughing teachers five days, shortening the school year five days.

● What’s next: The board meets May 27 to discuss using $23 million in SPLOST funds to close the budget gap. A final vote on the budget is scheduled for June 9.

DeKalb County

● By a 5-4 vote, the board approved a fiscal 2011 budget of $1.037 billion.

● How they cut: A total of 289 positions are being cut — 150 central office workers, 100 paraprofessionals, 30 media clerks and nine technical specialists. The central office workers include administrators, secretaries and police officers. Class sizes will increase and teachers will have to take seven furlough days. Administrators will have 15 furlough days. The board slashed $26 million in contributions to employees’ retirement plans and voted on a 10 percent voluntary pay cut for themselves.

Fulton County

● Expected deficit: $117 million

● How they plan to cut: The school board voted Thursday night to tentatively approve the budget of $1.17 billion. The board voted to cut elementary school band and orchestra classes. The board has also cut almost 1,000 positions, three school days from next year’s calendar and increased class sizes. The district laid off 206 teachers and 203 non-teachers. The district was able to reduce about 600 other positions through attrition.

● What’s next: The board meets June 8 to discuss raising the millage rate by 1 mill. A final vote on the budget is June 15.

Gwinnett County

● The school board adopted a $1.7 billion spending plan Thursday night – a decrease of $251 million from the current spending.

● How they plan to cut: They will increase classes by one student, freeze employee salaries and require three furlough days for all employees except bus drivers and food service workers. Other cuts include a districtwide 7.5-percent reduction in operating expenses and a decrease in retirement system contributions. Overall, the operating cuts total $72 million. The biggest decline in 2011 spending will come in capital projects — $187 million less for construction than this year.

Contributing: Staff writers Megan Matteucci, Patrick Fox, Janel Davis, Christopher Quinn, Jeffry Scott, Eric Stirgus and Gracie Bonds Staples.