Number of school closures in DeKalb could rise to 12

Just shows what the lack of knowledge … from Bush to Obama to Congress to Atlanta to Perdue to Lewis to the B.o.Ed. … of the people claiming to know what’s best and only wanting to spend, spend, spend (well, in the past anyway, no money now) can do. DeKalb isn’t the only county, watch out education, you’re about to really get sacked and those in charge couldn’t care less (since it’s not one of their pork projects!)

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The pain should have been spread around in the first round of proposals. I believe they didn’t think the people of south dekalb would be paying attention or put up a big stink. Hurray for south dekalb!!!!

Maureen – have you looked at the new Standards in Education across the board being proposed by the governors and school superintendents of each state?

We have to start somewhere and what I have heard appears to be a decent start. Let the local control people put the fear of “losing control or too much government” in this discussion.

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let me guess, now that they decided to close 4 underachieving schools with low enrollment in the south part of the county and thus… the ” race card was played” they will now come back and decide to close some quality high achieving schools on the north side of town. “so they can make things fair”?????????????

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What schools will the displaced Dekalb students likely be assigned to? Will they be rezoned for high performing schools– particulary the ones located in N. Dekalb? Or will they simply be sent to avg to mediocre schools throughout the district? Which is more fair to the displaced students?

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I’m in North DeKalb and was really upset over the targeted closings. Previously, the BOE considered cutting a few magnet programs. But, the Huntley Hills parents united and made the most noise. So, Lewis caved and said cutting Montessori was off the table. But, it was only off the table for NORTH Dekalb because the only other Montessori (Midway in Decatur) may close. I really can’t believe how one-sided the newest proposals are. I hope ALL parents stand up and stop this nonsense.

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@ jsmith – Actually, I think it’s racist to assume these schools were low-performing. Kelly Lake has met AYP for the last 6 years! Academic performance was not a consideration.

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Just remember that a couple of years ago, Nancy Creek in N. Dekalb was closed and those students were dispersed between Montgomery and Huntley Hills.

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Where is the money going? The Federal Government provides money for education, and my property tax bill provides money for education, and the State provide money for education. So where is the money going? How can Sky Haven Elementary be on the list with all the new houses sold in East Atlanta? Is it that parents prefer to send their kids to private school rather than allow them to attend the Black Elementary school in their neighborhood? Why are almost ALL of the schools on the list in black neighborhoods? Where are these children going to attend school? What about this Task Force? How much are they being paid? FIRE THE TASK FORCE, FIRE THE SUPERINTENDENT, FIRE EXTRA BAGGAGE AT CENTRAL OFFICE AND KEEP OUR SCHOOLS OPEN!

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it is blatantly RACIST to assume the schools on the list are underperforming “South DeKalb” schools. I have not heard performance as a single factor being considered. Instead it is enrollment which is being considered. None of these children or their parents want to be bused to some other part of the County where people will discriminate against them on a daily basis by assuming they are “underperforming” students. Isnt it interesting how “underperforming” has become a pseudonym for “Poor and Black”? I certainly dont want my children or my neighbors’ children subjected to racism in education. As a two-professional household you couldnt pay us to send our child to a school outside the neighborhood! Test scores dont mean squat. What matters is the daily development of a student and the contributions teachers make to their lives; and the efforts parents contribute towards their child’s education. Our children deserve a neighborhood school.

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Overall, the magnet schools have the best test scores and they are spread out throughout the county. Last year, DeKalb School of the Arts was the only Dekalb school to receive the “Blue Ribbon” award. It’s in Decatur and mostly Black

I think ALL of our kids are capable of doing well and there are good teachers and parents throughout the county.

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PTP–
Performance is an excellent criterion, and one I can get behind 100%, thanks.

However, if not measured by test scores (which I agree are close to meaningless particularly if we’re talking about the CRCT/AYP), how can we measure performance?–apparently within the space of a month or so, since somehow the BOE had no idea until this week they might need to look at closing schools.

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You know what’s crazy to me? I’m new to Atlanta, but I’ve noticed one theme… white people do things that really ARE racist (I’m white & my neighbors are all white and say the most vile things about blacks living in So. Dekalb), but they deny that it’s racist and call black people racist for calling them racist. It’s sad to say that most of the people in my neighborhood are racist, but would NEVER admit it! I’ve asked flat out to one guy who calls black people the “n” word and said he would pull his kids out of a school with black kids even if they did perform well, he DENIED being a racist! How the heck does that happen?? At least one particularly vile group with a racist history shows everyone what they think of immigrants, blacks, jews, etc. – it’s the closet racist that’s the most dangerous.

Glad I’m just here on assignment and will be going back home soon!

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There are a lot of reasons why that’s true. It could also be said that only involved parents would take the time to apply to magnets. But, very few north Dekalb parents send their kids south…so those test scores are from the assumed “under-performing” kids. My kids are at a magnet in the south (surprise ) and the other kids are all from Stone Mtn, Lithonia and Decatur. Yet, EVERYTHING about it trumps my neighborhood school.

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@Allen We should use the criteria that demands our children have a neighborhood school. We should use the standard that jobs at Central Office and a worhtless Task Force are not more important than our children. We should use the criteria that trims all of the fat off the pay rolls. We should use the criteria that fires a Superintendent who allowed the County to fall into this pit of despair. Likewise we should fire the Board. Let our schools run themselves with parental involvement if that is what it takes to keep our children in their own neighborhoods. As these hearings show even “Poor Black Parents from South DeKalb” care about their children’s education and will get involved when needed. Minimize the expenses at these schools. Move all the students and teachers to one side of the building, and rent out the other side for community events, which would provide somie revenue. Or simply turn off the electricity on that side of the school and save money. We should use the criteria that demands to know where our Education dollars have gone and holds the people responsible for this mess accountable instead of allowing them to take it out on our children. We should utilize the DA’s Office to investigate who has been stealing our Property Tax Dollars, file criminal charges, put them in jail, make them pay restitution, and leave our children’s schools alone.

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Didn’t you know? Every time govt runs out of money, they run to cut firemen, policemen, and teachers… knowing that people will throw up a fuss then give up and pay the extra taxes. Why don’t they cut from the DMV or the tax office or the Department of Reduncy Department?

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I am not a parent of a student at the south dekalb schools. I’ll put that out front. I do not want to see Midway, as a successful, parent-involved school who has received students from prior closures shut down.

I would say, however, that looking at enrollments does make sense…it has to start somewhere, and if a school has 1/2 of the students that it can hold, how does it make sense to close this school rather than one that is near or at capacity?

Doesn’t it also make sense to look at the current conditions of a school. If a school needs to have major repairs in the next five years, during this budget crisis, does it make sense to close a different school that will not require repairs?

It also is unlikely that all schools will come from a single area. Busing is expensive, and the goal, as I understand it, is to redistrict so that closures will keep kids close to a home area.

Where should the school board start if not with these criteria?

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The reason the targeted schools are all in south Dekalb is simple: Many of the schools there are at half capacity, or less.

There are some small schools in central and north Dekalb, but they are near capacity. Worse, the schools surrounding them are near capacity. Thus, if a school in central or north Dekalb closes there is nowhere for their students to go without overcrowding their new schools.

This is not the case in south Dekalb where a school could easily close and send its students to the surrounding schools without causing overcrowding.

Dekalb needs to severely reduce spending. It doesn’t need people using the race card or the NIMBY arguement.

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Uncle Joe Liberty, you seem to have the answer so why not just enlighten us.

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Here, I’ll take a stab at enlightening you folks.

So how many private schools will be closing this year? How many homeschools will be closing this year? Whatever the numbers, guaranteed that the number of children impacted will be far less than the number impacted by the never ending idiotic decisions of government.

Let’s have a short quiz for the millions who still don’t seem to get it:

Should where you live dictate how good an education your child receives?

Should rising or falling property values dictate how much money is available for education?

Should you be able to pull your child out of a particular school and put them in a better school if you are unhappy with their current situation?

Do you feel that you should be able to excercise the same consumer rights with education that you do with your purchases of food, clothing, electronics, car repair, and other goods or services?

Should un-elected or even elected bureaucrats be able to decide where your child attends school?

Should un-elected or even elected bureaucrats be able to decide what your child learns or doesn’t learn in school?

Is it ok that monies are taken from others in your community under penalty of jail or physical violence in order to pay for your child’s education?

Should bureaucrats a thousand miles away in our nation’s capital have control over your child’s education?

I’ll stop here, but you get the point.

You have made yourselves the victims of government by continuing to support their tax-financed mechanism of government education. You have no choice in where your child is educated. You must take on mortgage payments that may be beyond your ability in hopes of finding a tollerable school, only to see lines re-drawn or schools closed without your consent. And all because ultimately you don’t want to have to take personal responsibility for your child’s education and because you have bought into the lie that education can only be delivered by those approved by the state education apparatus. What gullible folks you are.

If the government had no involvement in education, there might be one or more school options in your own subdivision. There would certainly be dozens within a short distance from your home or on your way to work. There is no doubt that there would be options that spanned the cost range, just as there are higher and lower cost options for virtually everything you buy. Private companies or individuals that operated these schools would treat you like a customer and would do whatever they felt reasonable to serve you bearing in mind that you could take your tuition money and go elsewhere. They would be incentivised like all businesses to maximize their profits, minimize their costs, and target their product to satisfying their customers. None of these apply to the government run system. The government steals the money to run its operations, has no incentive to improve their product, has no concern when it must cut back services, locations, etc.

Would a truly free market in education be “perfect?” No. Is the current system anywhere close to perfect? To ask is to answer. Do you have any real control whatsoever over the outcome of government decisions regarding education? Don’t kid yourselves, you don’t. They get your money, even if you do the responsible thing and pull your child out of the system, homeschool them, or send them to a private institution. Without the seriously high burden on private businesses and others, the liklihood of available scholarships and other assistance is strong as well, so even with much lower priced options, those without means would still have charitable assistance if needed.

You only have 12 years in which to lay the important educational foundation for your child that will serve them for the rest of their lives. Why do you continue to turn that responsibility over to a government that by its very nature is unable to do anything well and has proven this time and time again? You do have the power to bring down this failed system. Begging at the feet of these folks for their mercy in not victimizing your child any longer is just not the way. You must withdraw your support beginning with your child and following up with your votes for candidates that wish to end all government involvement in education.

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My guess is the money is beeing misspent propertytax . Here’s some suggestions: Stop all travel, conferences, lunches, air plane travel for the district unless absoulutely an emergency. If you dont have money.. don’t spend it. I dont travel if I don’t have money. Delay all purchases for the year, new computers.. textbooks.. pens.. pamphlets.. copy machines.. make do with what you have now. It will last a year.. sell the 60 drivers ed cars that were beeing used at a public auction. sell the 90 simulators other school districts would love to have 1 year old equipment.. can you believe $250,000 dollars paid and only used one year. All purchases must stop.. that should help plug the hole. Stop all paid consultants.. why would you need a consultant anyway.. theres not enough doctorates or masters level personnell to figure stuff out?? Why pay for them if they have to hire outside the distric to come up with the answer???? And in the broader picture does it makes sense to cut peoples salaries.. the ones who spend in the community and help it recover verses giving the money to a big computer company or textbook company that doesnt spend in the community or even creat jobs?? just a thought.. Stop all purchases for the year and make do with what you have.. purchase what is absolutely necessary and thats it… Eliminate all these computer tech people.. 25 million in payrol for one dept.. wow!!! thats got to stop.. 5 principals at a high school for 1200 enrolled or less… my old hs had 4 principals for 2300 enrolled.. that should help with payroll..

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I teach at a central Dekalb school being proposed for closure and live in N. Dekalb. Enrollment was the initial issue for being placed on this list. However, several schools, north and south never even made it onto the proposed closure list. And in the end, the county recommended to the Board only schools in central and south Dekalb. That is not “playing the race card” that is fact. Also, if you close schools, and then redistrict so that schools still have less than 450, what is the point in that? That is what the redistricting maps propose to do.

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Who is Jim Cherry?
Maybe we need to get the legislation written that would FORCE the school boards to be fiscally responsible. I don’t believe there is anything that requires them to be good stewards of our money, schools and childrens’ education.

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PTP–
Truer words were never said:
We should use the criteria that demands our children have a neighborhood school. We should use the standard that jobs at Central Office and a worhtless Task Force are not more important than our children. We should use the criteria that trims all of the fat off the pay rolls.
Thank you. I’m not sure closing some schools can be avoided, but it seems clear to me that the BOE is charging ahead with that and, just wait for it, asking for a tax hike, without making a good faith effort to eliminate the waste at HQ.

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Allen – “We should”, “we should”, “we should”……..

Why not a “we should… pull our kids out of this failed system and demand that we be able to keep our tax dollars and spend them where we want in a system of privately-run education options that meet our needs for a change?”

In reading almost all of the posts, my point still stands. You all think you can “tweak” a fundamentally broken system and somehow make it work. You can’t.

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David–
I was actually quoting another poster . . .
And sorry, but I believe public education is one of the fundamental building blocks of a civil society. Balkanizing education into a haves vs. have nots system will certainly bring about change but I’d rather leave the 18th century behind us.
Should we privatize police and fire protection too? Highway maintenance?
To be fair to everyone else here, I think we’re moving off topic . . .

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