Response to today’s conversation

Commenters on the AJC Get Schooled blog debate the proposed annexation of the Druid Hills High School area of DeKalb County into Atlanta, and the implications for the communities left behind. Under the tentative annexation lines, some neighborhoods that now send students to Druid Hills High would not be annexed. Here is a sampling of comments:

Patriot: Folks, we'd better slow down and ponder what all this disruption is likely to bring to our area. What's going on now is not good for anyone and is likely to foster bigger problems.

EULB: I understand there are some valid reasons for wanting to be annexed by Atlanta. Joining the Atlanta school system is not one of them. Anyone who believes joining APS will give them greater control over their schools is dreaming. Don't jump out of the frying pan into the fire.

CJ: Maybe it's just me, but I fail to understand how someone living all the way in Medlock Park believes he/she is in the same community as someone living on Springdale, just north of the Byway. It would seem if one was looking to unite true communities, one would be in favor of the half of Druid Hills that is in DeKalb County being reunited with the rest of the neighborhood, which is already in Atlanta. That is an obvious neighborhood, not one manufactured by arbitrarily assigned school lines.

SP: Everything inside I-285 needs to become city of Atlanta. It's the only way to get Atlanta and the area out of the hole it's in. You would consolidate Fulton and DeKalb into a single county, contiguous with the city borders, and all county jobs would be assigned to their city government counterparts. Any "leftovers" would be absorbed into whatever counties they abut. This would give the city a large and varied tax and voter base and make it truly diverse. It would allow economies of scale as well as the consolidation of various overlapping government services.

DC: The idea — so prevalent among otherwise caring people — that "we can't save anyone because we can't save everyone" has to stop. Now. While it sounds so loving and caring, it guarantees exactly one thing: We won't save anyone. As the saying goes, you eat an elephant "one bite at a time." If you try to swallow the whole elephant, you fail. Likewise, you save a community by trying to save one child at a time.

TheDeal: If there is no annexation into Atlanta, the Druid Hills High School population is going to be torn apart anyway in the near future. LaVista Hills splits the Druid Hills High School zone, and when cities are eventually afforded either their own school systems via a constitutional amendment or some sort of city charter system, then half of Druid Hills High's students will be included in the new LaVista Hills school community. This isn't picking on LaVista Hills; it will happen with all of the cityhood efforts.