DeKalb: Close Kelley Lake, Glen Haven, Knollwood and Sky Haven schools
The DeKalb County school board appears to have used its own criteria for selecting four schools to close next year, announcing Friday that it was recommending that Kelley Lake, Glen Haven, Knollwood and Sky Haven elementary schools close at the end of the year.
Two of those schools were not on either of two lists of recommended closings presented to the board by a civilian task force that labored for eight weeks to come up with the fairest and most sensible closing scenarios.
The school board will advertise those schools as possible closures for the next 30 days to gather public input before making a final vote on May 14. Other possible closures include Gresham Park and Peachcrest.
The four schools are needed to help offset an estimated $115 million shortfall in the 2011 fiscal year budget, school officials said.
Closing those four schools will remove 2,200 of the districts 11,000 empty seats and save $2.3 million, said Dan Drake, the district’s planner. Under the plan, 1,600 students would be transferred to other schools.
The task force had recommended closing Knollwood, but had removed Kelley Lake from its possible closure because the school was nearly at capacity and the task force was committed to closing schools with a lot of empty desks. The task force had debated the fate of Glen Haven, which members felt was in an undesirable location near I-285. But it did not add it to its list in the end.
The task force advised closing only two schools this year, Knollwood and Gresham Park elementaries. It also gave the board a list of seven other schools to consider; Peachcrest, Clifton, Meadowview, Sky Haven, Flat Shoals, Rowland and Atherton, if more schools have to be shuttered this year.
It appears the school board followed its staff’s advice in selecting the four schools, which is fine. But why create a 20-person civilian group to study the issue in such depth?
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21 comments Add your comment
DeKalb Educated
April 16th, 2010
2:33 pm
So practical and so needed. They created the 20 person task force to avoid making the hard decision themselves. Paul Womack wrote an excellent piece for the AJC today. We need strong, ethical leadership in DeKalb in order to improve the schools and the government. I hope voters can take stand in November and find us some leaders.
The Voice
April 16th, 2010
2:36 pm
Wow! A decision! Who’d a thunk it? And one that followed the DCSS staff advice! And we all know why they picked a 20 member group.
Vote all of the BoE out and fire their relatives up to the second generation, that would be a good start at cleaning up this mess…
Tweets that mention DeKalb: Close Kelley Lake, Glen Haven, Knollwood and Sky Haven schools | Get Schooled -- Topsy.com
April 16th, 2010
2:36 pm
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Maureen Downey. Maureen Downey said: DeKalb: Close Kelley Lake, Glen Haven, Knollwood and Sky Haven schools http://bit.ly/9Q8Z8s [...]
Question
April 16th, 2010
3:01 pm
How long before race is brought into this forum?
Dekalbite
April 16th, 2010
3:13 pm
What short memories! Womack voted for the $15,000 raise for Crawford Lewis and he voted to install Dr. Lewis’s pick for Interim Superintendent, Ms. Tyson.
Shayna Steinfeld ran against Womack and lost. Please read her recent open letter to the DCSS BOE and then tell me Womack can even hold a candle to her:
http://dekalbschoolwatch.blogspot.com/2010/04/another-open-letter-to-board.html
DeKalb Educated
April 16th, 2010
3:33 pm
Dekalbite – you are right. We wanted Shayna and we got Paul for some reason. Still, he is better than SCW!!
Dekalbite
April 16th, 2010
3:46 pm
@ DeKalb Educated
Well, that’s not saying a lot. It’s too bad Ernest Brown didn’t win as well. He got a bum rap as a member of this task force. The DCSS BOE doesn’t like voices of reason.
DeKalb Educated
April 16th, 2010
3:51 pm
There is so little to be positive about in DeKalb school it was the only thing I could think of! So much money wasted. So much time fussing over stupid stuff that has nothing to do with putting quality educators in our classrooms. Get rid of central office staff – assign them to lunch room monitoring or teaching if they can.
Dunwoody Resident
April 16th, 2010
4:30 pm
Although closing these schools is fiscally the right decision, I think we should acknowledge how difficult this will be for the communities involved. Those of us not affected by this decision would likely scream bloody murder if our communities were shaken up like this at the end of the year with no time to make alternate plans, if we chose, for next year.
Dunwoody Resident
April 16th, 2010
4:33 pm
Although fiscally closing these schools is the right thing to do, I think we should acknowledge the tough, painful position of the communities involved. Those of us not affected by this decision, would likely be very upset and vocal if our schools were closed with no real time adjust for next year.
Ernest
April 16th, 2010
5:48 pm
A little more insight….
As Maureen indicates, DCSS staff presented six schools for consideration for consolidation. They are:
Knollwood * (Avondale)
Kelly Lake (McNair/Columbia)
Sky Haven/Gresham Park* (McNair)
Glen Haven/Peachcrest (Towers)
The schools with the asterisks were recommended by the Task Force. Staff did use some of the criteria recommended by the Task Force and included the schools they recommended. Per request of the BOE, staff presented a ‘firm’ 4 schools with the caveat of two substitutions.
Sky Haven was added over Gresham Park due to the condition of the building. It would estimated an $800,000 investment would be needed in foundation work for Sky Haven to bring it up to par. That would negate any savings from school consolidations by keeping it open.
Glen Haven was added because excess seats existed in the Towers cluster and it made more sense for consideration for consolidation over Peachcrest. Part of the intangible was the Boys and Girls club next door to Peachcrest (utilized for afterschool care) and closing Peachcrest would have removed over 1200 elementary schools seats in one community.
The Task Force and Staff both made sound, data driven recommendations.
Closure
April 16th, 2010
9:18 pm
Based on data the schools with high empty seats should be closed. They are Peachcrest, Gresham,Knollwood and Skyhaven.
say what?
April 17th, 2010
9:42 am
I disagree that Mr. Brown got a bum rap for serving on the task force. He has been supportive of DCSS and vocal when things don’t well. I have never met him, but I have read his opinions in the local newspapers, and the parent resource center at Chapel Hill has kind words to say about him.
This task force had to go over so much material, as community stakeholders did not believe that the central office staff was fair in its assessment of the schools necessary to close. And the task force came up with the near exact info as central office staff. All worked hard (staff and task force) to come up with the closures, unfortunately the schools affected still do not want to believe the truth.
Write Your Board Members
April 17th, 2010
10:43 am
It is hard to believe the truth when your board member is leading you another way. However, I have to give kudos to Zepora Roberts (though they are negated by her behavior on Monday night at the board meeting). She has a school or two on the list of 6 and she clearly understands this.
She even admitted that the new wing at Peachcrest is basically wasted space.
Dunwoody Mom
April 17th, 2010
11:30 am
I agree Dunwoody Resident with your thoughts. While, I have been frustrated with the race card some have played with regard to the closings issue, we do have to feel compassion for those who are losing their schools. However, I have to believe that merging communities to make a larger school that can provide the “extras” that are so important to a child’s education, will, in the long run, be positive for those children.
Concerned Parent and Educator
April 18th, 2010
4:16 pm
It still puzzles me how the district and the commission from the state can approve charter schools to be opened when traditional public schools are being closed. Public school funds the leasing and/or purchase of the facilities for charter schools. Even if the charter schools are opened under a management company, the local dollars will repay the management companies for loans and building of facilities. This totally puzzles me and does not appear to be in the best interest of the district goal of managing the deficit of the budget.
DekalbKnowledgeable
April 19th, 2010
5:28 pm
Why do they continue to keep Pat Pope? They finally mutually separated from Lewis! Fire THIS trouble maker and clear $200,000.00(her reported salary) a year for the DeKalb Budget fix. All legal inquiries/reports into her directing the firms to hire her husband/ architect have been illegal. The money regained from her salary alone could finance the new needs of the newly merged schools from the ones they closed down. By doing this simple step alone DeKalb would look to the public much more efficient, at least managerially.
Mey
April 19th, 2010
10:02 pm
Data driven is fine….but I think that 2 schools from South Dekalb and 2 schools from North Dekalb would have been more fair. Everyone has to take a part of the sting….not the poorest most needy communities. But let’s not forget that lower income folk are not as politically involved….the don’t vote…and rarely rally a cry. Those parents in North Dekalb chanted about that Montessori school and we haven’t heard a word about it closing again have we. That school served a very small population….not race….but economic often play a role in how we are treated or underserved.
Cere
April 20th, 2010
9:04 am
The decision regarding which schools to close is based on enrollment vs capacity. It’s simple math – it’s not about north vs south. The schools in the north are almost all either full or over-capacity. If you closed one, you would have nowhere nearby to send these children. The schools suggested for consolidation each only have a couple of hundred students rattling around in a building built for 500-600. The state will not fund these students – that’s a loss of at least $5000 per student that must come from DCSS’s budget. On top of that, we must pay for separate sets of admin at each school (principal, counselor, sec, etc…) And, as many have pointed out, several schools in the north were closed during the last round of closings. In my area we have Heritage ES, the Druid Hills Complex, and in Dunwoody – the old Chamblee MS. All shuttered. All need to be torn down as they are causing blight – and once you close them, you cannot reopen them at will – you must bring them up to modern code – which is cost-prohibitive, as most are full of asbestos.
Cere
April 20th, 2010
9:12 am
ps – the Montessori program at Huntley Hills houses 471 students. The parents presented a plan to continue using the Montessori learning method without incurring any additional cost as compared to a regular school curriculum. The board agreed to keep the program – they never discussed closing the school – as there is nowhere to send these children. (Unless you are suggesting re-instituting bussing – and sending them down to one of the low-enrolled schools in Sarah’s district – 25 or 30 miles away.)
If you would like to look at all the data (with an open mind) the Citizen’s Task Force has done a very good job of organizing and publishing it for the public to view at the link below:
http://www.dekalb.k12.ga.us/public/CPTF/
get real
June 27th, 2010
6:25 pm
Shayna Steinfeld is clueless and naive.