APS redistricting plans face strong resistance from some affected communities
The first citywide redistricting in Atlanta Public Schools in nearly 10 years is meeting with strong resistance from some affected communities.
More than 600 parents and community members attended a hearing on Monday night, many voicing concerns about the travel time to their children’s possible new schools, racial diversity and split neighborhoods, according to the AJC.
As many Kirkwood parents commented on this blog over the weekend, one of the latest proposals divides their neighborhood. A Kirkwood parent at the meeting said, “I don’t see a lot of other neighborhoods that are split up into thirds, and I think that’s because some neighborhoods get more respect.”
The proposed new scenarios reflect changes made after more than 8,200 comments and 800 e-mails to APS. There are more community meetings planned – tonight at Young Middle, Wednesday at North Atlanta High and Thursday at Price Middle. All meetings begin at 6:30 p.m.
I received this statement from the Old Fourth community of Atlanta, which is unhappy with the proposals:
Old Fourth Ward residents have roundly rejected both new scenarios proposing comprehensive redistricting of Atlanta Public Schools. Alarmed that the most recent plans proposed by APS demographers perpetuate a long pattern of racial and socio-economic segregation of children living in the middle of the Northeast sector, residents are pushing back.
In an official position statement to APS, Fourth Ward Neighbors, Inc. neighborhood civic association outlines its opposition to new maps that carve out a gerrymandered district excluding Old Fourth Ward children from the rest of the Northeast sector. (see official statement attached) Residents are demanding that APS reject the new proposals, and instead fully integrate O4W students into the sector which incorporates Hope-Hill Elementary School, Inman Middle School and Grady High School.
Hailed by the New York Times as “a cradle of culinary and artistic innovation and a symbol of gentrification,” and dubbed “The Best Bet for the Next Hot Hood” in 2010 by Creative Loafing, Old Fourth Ward is one of Atlanta’s fastest growing intown communities. It boasts an eclectic mix of history with the up-and-coming, seniors with hipsters and historic shotgun houses in close proximity to bold, modern homes. People come from near and far to enjoy the trendy restaurants, hot clubs, arts galleries and tourists attractions that make O4W a unique cultural experience.
With a sprawling new park, expansion of the Atlanta Beltline, transformation of the former Sears building to City Ponce Market, and a trolley line connecting it to Centennial Park, Old Fourth Ward is experiencing a renaissance of confidence. Education remains the one element that falls short of the community’s ideal. An influx of young, middle class residents who are starting their families and now considering their children’s educational opportunities, is bringing the community together to resolve the longstanding educational shortcomings.
Along with the OFW position statement, residents offer a number of possible solutions, including the sale of the old Walden Middle School to fund renovation of the David T. Howard to address middle school overcrowding.
And here is the neighborhood association’s letter to APS school chief Erroll B. Davis and the school board:
When first presented with the choices provided by the initial maps released in early December 2011, Old Fourth Ward was elated that it appeared that Atlanta Public Schools finally had the courage to end the racial and economic segregation in the northeast sector (Old Fourth Ward, Inman Park, Candler Park, Lake Claire, Druid Hills, Poncey Highland, Virginia Highland, Morningside, Morningside/Lenox Park, Midtown, Ansley Park and Sherwood Forest). Given the direction of the second set of maps it is clear that you have not demonstrated that courage.
The Old Fourth Ward deserves and requests full inclusion of our community and schools within the Northeast sector at the K-12 levels via Hope-Hill Elementary, Inman Middle, and Grady High School.
The new maps as submitted by the demographers are astonishing in their scope of racial and socio-economic segregation of the Old Fourth Ward population from their immediate northeast neighbors and the extent to which they violate a large majority of the Priority One guiding principles.
Herein are the guiding principles that the latest options violate with respect to the Old Fourth Ward:
1. Attempt to assign students to schools located closer to their homes
● Violation: In Option B, students living in the furthest part of Old Fourth Ward will travel 2.5 miles to Inman Middle School, while students in the furthest part of Kirkwood will travel 7.1 miles to Inman via surface streets. In addition, some students in the Old Fourth Ward would travel less than a mile to Inman via the Beltline or on surface streets.
2. Attempt to maximize/keep the school feeder concept intact. No more split feeders. Clusters only.
● Violation: Both options create a split feeder at the middle school level.
3. Ensure student safety and transportation efficiency by using major highway corridors and geographic features as zone boundaries. Give weight to traffic patterns, energy efficiency, etc.
● Violation: The Old Fourth Ward community attendance of King and Coan Middle School requires the crossing of a major interstate and/or major railway corridor.
4. Minimize impact on areas that have been redistricted within the last three years.
● Violation: C.W. Hill students were redistricted when they were sent to John Hope Elementary in the 2009-2010 school year.
5. Attempt to avoid splitting neighborhoods.
● Violation: Option B currently presents a split Kirkwood neighborhood, choosing to select a whiter portion of Kirkwood to go to Inman Middle School, forcing out the Old Fourth Ward.
6. Retain ES splitting as a planning tool
● Violation: This planning tool was used in 3 of the 4 Round One options and has since been discarded for Hope-Hill, while this planning tool was kept as a valid tool for a Mary Lin/Toomer merger.
7. Consider SPLOST funded school expansion as a planning tool
● Violation: Old Fourth Ward holds a significant portion of dormant APS sites that could be used for expansion for our NE cluster.
If you accept either of the proposed Options, you, as board members:
1. Admit that it is acceptable to racially gerrymander lower income, minority students out of the Northeast sector at the elementary and middle school levels so that their largely more affluent, non-minority counterparts in close proximity may attend schools without them;
2. Accept that it is a preferable objective to racially segregate children from kindergarten to the 8th grade in the northeast sector;
3. Accept that, as educators, you have decided that in the northeast sector, lower income children are the only student population appropriate to send to middle schools that act as split feeders while a body of largely high income, non-minority students are not sent to split feeder schools;
4. Accept that, as educators, it appears that you have only allowed the low-income minority children of the Old Fourth Ward to attend Grady High School for the sole purpose of retaining Grady High School’s Title I money/subsidies;
5. Accept that, as residents of the City of Atlanta, you have chosen to hyper-segregate the population of students surrounding Dr. Martin Luther King’s home in the Old Fourth Ward to an overwhelmingly lower income, minority school population;
6. Admit there is a perception that your demographers have been heavily influenced by the seemingly segregationist arguments of some within the largely more affluent, non-minority neighborhoods in the northeast sector (based on the comparison of round one and round two maps);
7. Accept that busing non-minority students from the far away neighborhoods of Lake Claire, Kirkwood and Candler Park into Inman Middle School is an acceptable practice even though minority students in the Old Fourth Ward reside within a largely walkable distance to Inman Middle School and should rightfully attend that school;
8. Accept that racially gerrymandering the largely more affluent, majority white neighborhood of Inman Park into the Mary Lin Elementary attendance zone is an acceptable practice even though its walking-distance proximity to Hope-Hill Elementary should have demanded that it is part of the Hope-Hill attendance zone;
9. Accept that you as a board and superintendent have been complicit in the historic and systematic discrimination against poor minority students from the Old Fourth Ward for decades by excluding them regularly from attending elementary and middle schools with the student populations from Inman Park, Poncey Highland, Candler Park, Lake Claire, Virginia Highland, Sherwood Forest Morningside/Lenox Park, Midtown, and Ansley Park;
10. Recognize that it appears your demographers were heavily influenced by supporters of Mary Lin Elementary, Springdale Park Elementary and Morningside Elementary to the complete and total exclusion of the Old Fourth Ward interests that were clearly communicated via the same feedback process;
11. Admit that you have chosen to repeatedly and systematically devote financial resources to majority white neighborhoods in the northeast sector through the construction of new schools and additional classroom space that maintain and support historic racial segregation.
12. Accept that you created an academic and social disadvantage for segregated students’ ability to successfully integrate at the high school level.
13. Accept that as a board, the capacity issues in the northeast sector remain unresolved; that you refuse to allow Hope-Hill’s excess capacity to assist in relieving overcrowding at Springdale Park or Mary Lin Elementary schools; and that you did this in order to satisfy non-minority neighborhoods’ desire to exclude Hope-Hill at the elementary and middle school levels; and that you in turn propose new plans/maps to fill Hope-Hill beyond capacity with lower income minority students as an alternative;
14. Accept that Priority One guiding principles were selectively applied to favor certain communities.
We respectfully request that you immediately reject the revised maps as they pertain to the Old Fourth Ward. We look forward to an immediate revision of these maps that better integrate all communities in the Northeast sector.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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310 comments Add your comment
Entitlement Society
February 2nd, 2012
10:32 am
@Wait and See – I, too, live in SRT4. How sad is it when people from outside our neighborhoods have the gall complain that APS would spending any money for the students of North Atlanta? Talk about a provincial point of view! Once again, we have people thinking they are “entitled” to something more than our children. It blows my mind!
Entitlement Society
February 2nd, 2012
10:34 am
excuse typos… fingers flying in disbelief!
Wait and see
February 2nd, 2012
10:53 am
@entitlement society, it was quite depressing. Our hard work to support our children benefits theirs, and yet there is absolutely no appreciation of this fact.
anon
February 3rd, 2012
7:35 am
Why exactly are Buckhead people mad at Morningside? Everyone seems to agree that moving Morningside into the Buckhead cluster doesn’t make any sense, and just about everyone in the MES zone is vehemently against it. Morningside advocated against that aspect of the plans. So what is the problem?
Centennial was moved up to Buckhead for two reasons: (1) Centennial has a much longer commute to Inman than other Inman feeders. Trust me on this. I’ve done that commute across the freeway and midtown, and it is awful. The obvious choice for Centennial was Kennedy, but Centennial lobbied hard against this, as is their right. Some prominent members of the community (associated with the school, I think) suggested that they’d rather go up to Buckhead than to Kennedy.
(2) Taxpayers voted for SPLOST with the understanding that certain funds would be designated for a Mid-Town Middle School. Now they want to use those funds for south Buckhead. I’m sure they think the public outcry will be less fierce if at least some midtown-area students feed the school. They’re wrong about that, by the way. Those funds should be used to relieve crowding in the Grady cluster, by expanding SPARK and/or funding a new or retrofitted middle school as a second feeder to Grady. I’m sorry if Buckhead feels entitled to those funds, but midtown is actually entitled to them. Anyway, it sounds like Buckhead doesn’t want the new middle school, so we can all agree on that.
Entitlement Society
February 3rd, 2012
7:44 am
Why do you say “Buckhead feels entitled to those funds?” Where did you get that information? Speak for yourself, not for others so you stop spreading mistruths. The last think Buckhead people feel is “entitled.” We, in Buckhead, actually work and pay the highest taxes in the City, so instead of always slamming us, you should thank us for our tax dollars that supports way more than just Buckhead children.
frustrated APS mom
February 3rd, 2012
7:55 am
People around here feel like this time around the demographers and APS caved from the heat Morningside put on them to relieve some overcrowding in your cluster. They put Centennial up here to get them out of your cluster. Our WHOLE cluster is overcrowded. The whole thing. So why move kids up here – that aren’t even on the same IB track – when you have empty schools down there?
frustrated APS mom
February 3rd, 2012
8:04 am
I think most people think it is unnecessary and expensive to build several new schools in Buckhead by 2015/16. All we really want is to see Rivers get rebuilt and expanded to 750 from something around 680 I think, see the expansion for Brandon, either turn North Atlanta into a middle school with Bolton, Brandon, and Rivers and Sutton into a middle with Smith, Jackson, and Garden Hills, or go back to the 6th grade center concept. We are getting the new high school and we are happy about that. That is the only new school that needs to come into the picture. Save the $100 million or so that would need to be spent on another 2 or 3 schools that we don’t even want and leave us alone.
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
8:14 am
@frustrated, and @entitlement, Amen!
Entitlement Society
February 3rd, 2012
8:26 am
Frustrated APS mom hit the nail on the head – save the millions on the new middle school that Buckhead doesn’t want or need and leave us alone! The new high school is the only thing needed. It’s sad when the parents at these meeting are more organized and knowledgeable than APS and the demographers (the errors were glaring). Put a task force of highly educated and involved parents on the case and you could solve this whole debacle with much less heartache and bickering.
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
8:38 am
@anon, we don’t want the new middle school. What we do want is for APS to stop wasting tax dollars on ill-conceived plans that nobody wants. We in Buckhead have already come up with a better (and much less costly) plan to solve our overcrowding. It does not involve adding more students to the mix. Oh, and BTW, why is midtown “entitled” to the SPLOST funds?
anon
February 3rd, 2012
8:45 am
Frustrated, I understand your frustration, but your ire is misdirected. If you look at Morningside’s position statement, you will see that Morningside explicitly advocated against moving schools between SRTs. Many SPARK/Morningside parents are as surprised and annoyed by these plans as you are. They do nothing to address long-term problems in the Grady cluster, and they do not eliminate split feeders. Grady needs a second middle school feeder or a 6th grade academy. SPLOST money should fund that, along with a SPARK addition. This isn’t rocket science.
Entitlement Society, please re-read your post. On the one hand, you say you Buckhead doesn’t feel it is entitled to SPLOST funds. Then you go on to say that you are entitled to funds because you pay more in taxes. Which is it? By the way, where is your data backing up your claims about Buckhead taxpayers? Is that based on total population or is it per capita, and what areas of the city are you comparing it with? Have you spent any time in Ansley, Morningside, Sherwood Forest? On a per capita basis, I would put the MES feeder communities up against most areas of Buckhead. My family is a high-income, high-net-worth, high-property-value family, and I can assure you that we pay a lot in taxes at every level. We want nothing more than to leave Buckhead alone. We abhor Buckhead. We go there as little as possible, basically only for trips to the pediatrician. But that’s neither here nor there. It seems there is some agreement that Buckhead doesn’t need another middle school, which leaves those funds for SRT 3. I hope Buckhead gets everything it wants. I need to get back to working hard at my high-paying job…
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
8:46 am
@entitlement society, somehow I think maybe certain connected people own land that is being considered, or own construction companies that will build these schools that nobody wants. You just never know, after all, APS just won the SPLOST lottery. All I know for certain is that they are clsing schools in other clusters while actually considering adding more to our overcrowded cluster. Ridiculous on its
anon
February 3rd, 2012
8:48 am
Wait and see, I say the midtown communities are entitled to the SPLOST funds designated for Mid-Town Middle School because taxpayers voted for SPLOST in reliance on the representation that the funds would be spent in these communities.
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
9:05 am
@anon, 30327 pays the most property and federal taxes in the city; 30305, which is also Buckhead, pays the second most in property taxes. Unfortunately, I have been unable to find the property tax link that I have viewed in the past, but here is the federal tax link: http://wealth.mongabay.com/cities/GEORGIA.html . Buckhead is a much larger community (remember, it used to be its own city) than the neighborhoods you describe. Also, those SPLOST funds were promised to Buckhead, too, to fix E Rivers overcrowding. And since its a sales tax, maybe BUckhead should keep the sales tax raised in Buckhead at Lenox and Phipps and our restaurants and boutiques, and you all can keep what’s raised in your part of town, since Buckhead is so awful that you don’t even want to visit it. Perhaps that would make you happier? Or would you prefer Buckhead goes back to being its own city, so you don’t have to be bothered by us at all, and, since you are so wealthy, you can do the heavy lifting of supporting the rest of Atlanta.
To Good Mom From Nashvilleo4w
February 3rd, 2012
9:07 am
Not that I need to explain myself, but my reasoning for putting the information on this blog of what the demographer said to me was to prove my point in that underneath of all of this talk about schools lies an undertone of, well hatred. Its the people that live in these so called “liberal neighborhoods” that behind close doors can send hateful emails to the demographers because think about it, they are not coming from our neighborhood and the people that feel passionate about this issue are the ones that are going to take the time to write it and send it…people from other neighborhoods. Look, I am just stating the facts and what he told me….if you don’t like it, which clearly you don’t, then you need to ask yourself why you would want to attack me on this blog the way that you did? It seems to me that the way you are GM are reacting to what I said makes you seem more gulity than anything else. Your anger runs deep. By the way, I am white
Entitlement Society
February 3rd, 2012
9:20 am
@anon – ???? I wrote NOTHING about “SPLOST funds” or being “entitled to more SPLOST funds.” I think that’s where the disconnect lies. Sorry you have such disdain for us folks here in Buckhead. We, on the other hand, are friendly and lead by example teaching our children to respect and speak kindly about our neighbors in all communities of the City.
Entitlement Society
February 3rd, 2012
9:25 am
Let’s count how many times @anon can use the word “entitled” in his/her posts… Have I made my point yet?
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
9:44 am
@entitlement, @anon has such a big chip on his/her shoulder that @anon probably walks with a limp. I don’t know about you, but besides paying high taxes, my family (yes, I take the kids) volunteer at food pantries, donate our gently used goods to charity, my spouse does free counseling, give blood, and so on. And guess what, if Buckhead is conservative and Morningside is liberal, then most of my neighbors are also volunteering at Habitat (which is a blast, BTW) while most of @anon’s neighbors are not. It has been proven statistically that conservatives are more generous and charitable: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/21/opinion/21kristof.html . I want to thank you, @entitlement, for support on this blog. It has improved my mood and helped me to remember to not let some angry people try to ruin my day.
Entitlement Society
February 3rd, 2012
10:03 am
@Wait and See – thanks for making my day better, too. My family and I are with you, too. I’m so tired of people like @anon blasting us and trying to speak for us (see @anon’s posts) when they have no clue what we do or what we’re about. I guess we’ll just have to keep killing them with kindness like your family and mine are obviously doing. Have a great day, stranger!
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
10:55 am
You, too, @entitlement! Oh, and city-data has the property tax info by zip. 30327 averages $6329 per housing unit, 30305 averages $5413, and 30306 (which I believe is Morningside) is only $3500. We can never do enough to satisfy some people as long as we have more than they do. Unfortunately, that is what this really is about. And we just thought it was about what was best for the children…
GKM
February 3rd, 2012
11:48 am
@entitlement society and @wait and see, thanks for illustrating so beautifully why no one in SRT3 wants to be sent up to the Buckhead schools!
To Nashvilleo4w from Good Mom
February 3rd, 2012
12:50 pm
I don’t care what your race is, Nashvilleo4w, and I find it sad that you find it necessary to report what yours is. It proves nothing.
I also had to shake my head at your “liberal neighborhood” label you put on someone else’s neighborhood. You expect a “liberal neighborhood” to act as you say they shoud? A neighborhood has all types. On my street are Pro-Obama signs and bumper stickers next door to “Don’t Tread on Me” tea party members. A neighborhood is composed of a bunch of individuals who all have different thoughts and feelings.
No one neighborhood has the corner on emotions and angry emails in this rezoning debate and I find it more than a little laughable that you claim that without a doubt hateful emails to demographers did not come from your neighborhood?
Think about what you jsut said “Its the people that live in these so called “liberal neighborhoods” that behind close doors can send hateful emails to the demographers because think about it, they are not coming from our neighborhood”
They are nt coming from your neighborhood? Nashville, that would mean that you know every single individual in the old fourth ward and that you have access to every single email ever sent by every single member of the old fourth ward…how do you find the time?
JB
February 3rd, 2012
1:19 pm
@ Entitlement and Wait and See
School operating budgets come from property taxes. Operating expense is based per student. (It’s a more complex formula involving class ratio requirements, but we will use this simple model for discussion.) This reflects an implied social contract – and the law – which states all public school students should get equal educational opportunities, regardless of race and how much tax their parents pay. Unlike a progressive tax (your income tax), it is an equal percentage rate for all, so the amount you pay is somewhat self-determined. You can live in a cheap house and pay less. Plus you would need the total numbers, not averages per unit for accuracy (if average is $6000, but there are only 2 homes, then that’s a lot less money than 10 households paying $2000 each).
SPLOST is a sales tax. It would be difficult to determine what areas raise the most funds. What If I live in Inman Park, but shop at Lenox? Tourists and out of state businesses pay a lot of that too. So APS allocates that money based on need. I have actually looked at these figures a lot.
On some level I agree with you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with people who pay a lot of taxes to want a good education for their own children. However while SRT4 does have 30% more kids than SRT3 they get a more than 3-4 times the amount of SPLOST funding than students in SRT3, which is facing similar overcrowding issues. In SPLOST IV alone SRT4 is slated to get 3 brand new schools, while SRT3 gets small expansions to 2 elementary and nothing at MS or HS level. As anon stated, it doesn’t appear that SRT3 wants to trek all the way up to Buckhead (nothing personal, just a bad commute).
So to state that SRT3 has somehow used their political clout to get more for themselves is unfounded. Rather than pointing the finger at SRT3, we all would be better served if you asked APS why they spent $80 million on Corretta Scott King and Best Academies (both in SRT4) which have 35-50% enrollment. That’s where your money went.
"...Spark, Inman, Grady today; Keep it that way..." - City-Data Forum
February 3rd, 2012
5:51 pm
[...] APS redistricting plans face strong resistance from some affected communities | Get Schooled [...]
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
9:22 pm
@JB, we don’t want the proposed new elementary and middle school, just a new school to replace E Rivers, which has insufficient capacity and structural and mold issues. I do want APS and the demographers to stop viewing our children as pawns on a chess board. It was quite irritating listening to them describe the movement of student populations as the domino effect. It just came across as very callous. The movement of the children of Centennial Place out of SRT3 will cause these children to have horrendous commute times. We have plenty of disadvantaged children attending Bolton, Rivers, and Garden Hills, but they live within a reasonable proximity to those schools. I just believe the commute would put an undue burden on the children and their parents. I would be more than happy to see some of the SPLOST dollars allocated to help resolve these issues. However, it seems like the city should be able to figure something out with the properties they already have. I confess, however, that APS is a very large system, and I am only truly familiar with the issues of SRT4. I have just heard that people are unhappy with some school closings and that some of these schools would prefer a K-8 model. However, I am not familiar with which schools and in which SRT. SRT4 is bursting at the seams. We needed a new high school. We do not need a new middle school. Our PTA’s have come up with a solution that saves lots of money that could be redirected somewhere else. It is not about the money. We want Sutton converted to a 6th grade academy, and the current North Atlanta converted into a 7th/8th grade. Problem solved! Money saved. Make E Rivers larger than current footprint on the rebuild. Do not build new elementary. Problem solved, money saved. It is very simple.
Wait and see
February 3rd, 2012
10:17 pm
@JB, I did not know of BEST or Coretta Scott King, or of several other elementary schools listed under SRT4 on the APS website and yet never discussed at SRT4 meetings. Wow! It seems kind of suspicious on its face. At SRT4 meetings, the only middle school ever discussed is Sutton. Also, those schools are not physically located in what has been mapped as SRT4. I wonder at the ways the public has been misled on their funding.
Grady Diversity
February 4th, 2012
12:20 am
No matter how you divvy up the SPLOST dollars, while SRT3 has middle school capacity, there is no justification from a purely financial side to spend $30,000,000 on a middle school because 30307 won’t shift south to fill the open seats.
Inman and Grady feeder pattern needs to be filled with those schools which are closer in proximity. The feeder ESs should be Morningside, SPARK, CP and Hope/Hill. HHill abuts the Grady zone the same way MES does. It is in MES’ best geographic interests to get this one right if they want to stay in. Maybe they can’t read a map. SPARK either if it means those signs that they won’t be divided from the MES community.
30307’s months of backdoor conversations with the demographics about quality surely have driven all six map options. A school’s quality is determined no more by bricks and sticks than a structure makes a house a home. Lin clearly has no confidence in their parent body’s abilities. Or MES, SPARK and Lin are racist.
ABE what are you individually? Lachandra, Byron and Emmett , can you really close all of those schools in your neighborhoods and allow APS to pay that huge price tag for the affluent neighborhoods? We know you owe Cecily for her block votes, but you owe your communities who elected you more.
Grady Diversity
February 4th, 2012
12:38 am
The moves for all of our children are ignored because one zip code is driving the map.
Take a look at the APS website. They have whole SRT meetings for 1, 2 and 3, but merged SRT4 northwest with SRT1. Douglass and the African-American schools are not included with their own SRT discussions. That is how APS and the ABE treats this as they draw the great racial divide through Atlanta.
I guess the federal desegregation court order expired the minute whites decided they had to return to public schools due to the economy. These whites intown liberals will elect an African-American to sit in the White House, but not let their kids attend school with them.
Ironic this is occurring in the neighborhood where MLKing was born.
The city of Atlanta collectively bears the shame for this is they don’t get these maps right.
Hunger Games
February 4th, 2012
12:40 am
@Wait and see – hate to tell you, but Morningside is about a day away from tipping Republican. Different from some of the other Grady communities. Y’all can go fight about how relatively conservative you are. That doesn’t matter to me.
As one from the *other* Grady communities (which are very mixed in political persuasion), I would love to see Centennial stay at Grady. I would love to see them get their wish to be K-8. I’d love to take that “Midtown Middle School” and put it to work for the cluster that actually serves Midtown, because we desperately need more middle school space. APS has known this for years. That’s why it’s in the SPLOST-IV budget. Just look at the census maps on population increase over the last 10 years and overlay that on the facility space available.
I would love to see other northeast / Grady cluster neighborhoods like Old Fourth Ward not be shut out of the middle school that’s in their own back yard due to lack of space.
We can build an even better Grady cluster. Give us our middle school that they mistakenly put in Buckhead trying to kill two birds with one stone and probably trying to line someone’s real estate pocket in the process.
Strangely enough, I think we’re all on the same page.
To Grady Diversity from Good Mom
February 4th, 2012
12:56 am
Why is it that your zip code or neighborhood doesn’t want to go to Coan Middle School? You’re right, it can’t be about the bricks and sticks. It’s actually a pretty big facility.
What is very likely is that no one wants to go to Coan and all the heartache is around that fact? I have never, ever in my many years in Atlanta ever heard anything good about Coan. I always here how rock-bottom the test scores are (and I’ve checked and they are truly the worst of the worst.
Then after widespread knowlege of just how bad the learning failures were there, the school was denounced for some of the worst of the worst cheating scandals. I checked. Coan had more than 50%.
Those teachers who first were unable or unwilling to teach those children, failed in their duty and afterward they broke a sacred public trust by changing those test scores and cheating and betraying those children again. Those liars and thieves are still in that school.
I wouldn’t trust my mutt of a dog to the employees of that school and I’ve never heard anyone, not a single parent, not a single teacher, no one ever ever ever say a single good word about that school.
It’s not just one zip code that doesn’t want to go to Coan, even Coan doesn’t want to go to Coan.
That’s not racism or elitism or classism, that’s just parents wanting to give their kids a decent shot at an education and Coan, clearly isn’t able to do that.
Your thoughts?
Good Mom
Hunger Games
February 4th, 2012
1:35 am
@Grady Diversity – SRT-3 south of the CSX tracks has excess capacity for more than one reason:
1. APS was way out of step with AHA’s change of plans with regard to public housing. The move toward mixed income was started in the early ’90s, yet APS continued to invest in schools in areas historically populated by large numbers of children living in public housing, even when they knew that there was no possibility of redevelopment that would have a similar concentration of school aged children. Perhaps they were afflicted by the “if we build it they will come” mentality.
2. Huge numbers of residents in those neighborhoods do not send their own kids to their zoned public schools. They send their kids to charter schools, private schools, or even City of Decatur schools. The APS attendance zone boundaries are a mess, there is no sense of stability, and the cheating scandal has really stung. I don’t blame those parents for that choice. But the idea of demanding that 30307 schools swoop in to cure it because of the vacancies created by both APS and the choices made by parents there is insulting.
It’s amazing how 30307 is viewed as the “rescue team” for a number of different under capacity schools.
I can’t take any credit for it whatsoever, but do you know how Mary Lin got built back up? It’s only part of the story that includes other neighborhoods, but back when Inman Park was considered to be a slum, which was not all that long ago, a few neighbors decided to stake their future on building up that school. They pulled their neighbors in over the next few years. (Their kids are very successful adults now, by the way).
Some of those schools south of the tracks need to close, if only for now, because the same concentration of public housing kids will not come back absent high density redevelopment in those neighborhoods.The other ones need to be championed by the people who live there.
Suavez
February 4th, 2012
6:32 am
@Grady Diversity, you can count me as a parent who doesn’t want to send their child to school with poor black children. In my experience, too many of them are disruptive and tend to be bullies. They are also often so far behind academically that they end up taking too much of the teacher’s attention. Thanks to the CRCT, children who are likely to fail get all the attention. If your child will obviously pass, they get totally ignored.
Obviously not all poor black children are like that, but enough that it is a real issue. I’m not willing to sacrifice my child at the altar of diversity.
@Grady Diversity
February 4th, 2012
8:17 am
“These whites intown liberals will elect an African-American to sit in the White House, but not let their kids attend school with them.”
Do you really believe that? I think something close to 100% of the parents in the Lin zone (”liberal” or not) would jump at the chance to have their kids in middle and high school with kids of families like the Obamas – highly educated parents who teach their children the value of education – without concern for the families’ race.
Stop trying to blur the distinction between wanting a good (and safe) education for your children and wanting to keep your children away from other children based on race.
Distances from Inman
February 4th, 2012
8:54 am
Grady Diversity said: “Inman and Grady feeder pattern needs to be filled with those schools which are closer in proximity. The feeder ESs should be Morningside, SPARK, CP and Hope/Hill. HHill abuts the Grady zone the same way MES does.”
Here’s a chart showing average 1-way “as the crow flies” distance from elementary school zone to Inman (and it contains explanations of how it was calculated and the underlying code for anyone who wants to check it):
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?hl=en_US&key=0AqVSrKawR254dDhQVUFkakdYM2VKQ2FxdS1UX0l3WGc&hl=en_US&gid=2
Hope-Hill 1.74 miles.
Lin 1.87 miles.
Morningside Elem 1.70 miles.
In other words, if you’re going to wave away the fact that Ponce separates Inman from schools south, then Lin, Hope-Hill, and Morningside Elementary zones are equidistant from Inman. If Inman were being districted from scratch, there would certainly be no reason to exclude Hope-Hill’s zone. But it’s not being districted from scratch, and the almost equal distances from Inman are also not a justification to knock the Lin families, who have contributed hugely to Inman, out in favor of pushing Hope-Hill families in.
(Now I’ll be the first to admit that Option B, carving off the wealthier families from the Toomer zone and putting them into Inman, while still excluding Hope-Hill, is bizarre and suspect in several different ways.)
To Hunger Games from Good Mom
February 4th, 2012
10:05 am
RE: “It’s amazing how 30307 is viewed as the “rescue team” for a number of different under capacity schools.”
Very well said. Succinct. Meaningful. Perfect comparison.
…and so unfair to the kids who get shoved around and expected to be the EMTs and ambulance drivers.
I also suspect something more sinister. If kids from 30307 are put into failing schools, those test scores at those failing schools will appear to improve.
I also suspect real estate speculation. THere is a blogger on these threads, Alex, from 04wd who desperately wants to be zoned for a different school or have other children be zoned into his, why? Perhaps to artificially inflate test scores so that property values will increase.
I’m so worn out with all these emergency education infernos created by a corrupt Atlanta Public School board. I want and we need to have smaller, more manageable, local school districts. APS has proven over and again that it is too incompetent and too corrupt to manage anything and I am dead-tired of my kids being used as members of an emergency medical team sent out to rescue and save a debacle that they had no part in.
Good Comments, Hunger Game
GM
Grady Diversity
February 4th, 2012
7:00 pm
The 2010 Census is driving another kind of redistricting. That of which representatives will serve our communities. As the population shifts, then you have to rebalance in order to ensure that the system works representationally.
School redistricting also responds to population shifts. It seeks to move students in overcapacity schools to seats in undercapacity schools.
Whatever Inman neighborhood is closer to Coan needs to take one step south. That neighborhood is Coan.
If logic does not dictate the result, then of course we know what happened. The same thing that happened during the CRCT cheating scandal. Politics. The same board members (Reuben, Cecily, LaChandra and Emmett) who wanted to cover up the cheating will turn their backs on the schools below Dekalb Avenue. You might as well extend that line to Alabama.
The next board election, there are a few board members that need to Step Down. Mr. Amos, will you be one of them? You better decide the right thing for the kids and vote for them and not your alliance. 4/5; 5/4; I’m an sick of this combination on this board. It should be 9 for the right thing that makes LOGICAL sense.
Lin families, it might be cheaper to buy all of your houses than spending $30,000,000 to build you a new school. You can then move to SPARK zone.
MES to SPARK
February 4th, 2012
7:04 pm
It was not too long ago that Morningside Elementary was broken in half and some sent packing. Yes, it was very emotional and nasty like this mess. But look at SPARK. It has done great things in a short time.
Overcrowding had a negative impact at Morningside and will have the same thing at Inman and Grady. Someone needs to go and fill the open seats. It is that plain and simple.
To Gravy Diversity Good Ma
February 4th, 2012
7:29 pm
You write “Lin families, it might be cheaper to buy all of your houses than spending $30,000,000 to build you a new school. You can then move to SPARK zone.”
If each home at Lin is worth only $300k, then $30,000,000 will only buy 100 homes. There are 65 homes on my small little street. In other words, Grady Diversity, nah, not even close.
GM
To MES to Spark Good Ma
February 4th, 2012
7:34 pm
You write “Someone needs to go and fill the open seats. It is that plain and simple.”
If it was really that simple you’d volunteer your neighborhood and your family to go to Coan.
The number of open seats is the least of most parent’s worries. Many families at Lin would rather stay in a beat up overcrowded trailer than move their children to Coan.
The problem, which isn’t really simple, which is actually quite complicated, is how did Coan become the plague on education?
The school, Coan, had the worst of the worst test scores for years and years. The cheating scandal was so rampant that it made the worst of the worst lists too.
Crime in and near Coan is frightening.
….and you call it a simple matter of putting butts in seats?
Hunger Games
February 4th, 2012
10:56 pm
@MES to SPARK –
there’s a huge difference – splitting Morningside and making a new school out of it, even if you were forced to take a few of those “undesirable” Mary Lin students because you secretly planned, and purchased property within what was the Mary Lin district at the time is a far cry from what you advocate now.
You will be exposed for your reaching out to O4W to try to form an alliance that kicks Mary Lin out of Inman. Shameful. Small minded people you are, when we could add what’s needed to make the Grady cluster succeed.
Inman park
February 5th, 2012
9:36 am
Why is that so many Morningside and Spark parents seem to be on an absolute mission to push Lin out of Inman and Grady? We have worked collaborately for years making these two schools some of the strongests in all of APS. You now seem determined to push us over to Coan, an underperforming school, where the residents near their very own school refuse to send their children? Why is it I wonder that Spark did not want to merge with Hope- Hill? If you think 30307 should roll up its sleeves and improve Coan,why were you not willing to the same at Hope-hill?
I can tell you that after the first round of maps, Inman Park held a meeting to discuss the 4 options and there was not one in Attendence that felt that it was right to push MES up to Buckhead for middle and high and as a matter of fact, we advocated for your neighborhood and school. What a shame that Spark and MES don’t have the same loyalty to those that have stood beside you to build these schools. What a shame in deed!
Suavez
February 5th, 2012
10:40 am
@inman- we don’t want Lin pushed out. We just want the Fourth Ward out as well as kirkwood/Edgewood. Those folks don’t even use the schools in their own neighborhoods and then they try to force our kids into their underutilized schools.
SPARK for Lin at Inman
February 5th, 2012
12:14 pm
@Inman Park. I don’t personally know anyone at SPARK who is advocating for pushing Lin into Coan. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but it’s not what people are saying generally. In fact, some SPARK parents have been leading the effort to strategize about how to keep SPARK and Lin families together in middle school (or, if that is not possible, at least to help Lin get a Grady-feeding middle school closer to it). I understand why you’re angry and scared, but please don’t create more divisions; it won’t help you stay at Inman.
Inman park
February 5th, 2012
2:57 pm
@ Spark. Thank you for your insight. I only bring this up because many on this blog, such as Morningside to Spark as well as Grady Diversity, seem to have much anger about Lin remaining at Inman and Grady in these teo options. I do not know if you were able to attend the SRT-3 meeting, but it seemed to be a night of Lin bashing, just not sure why….
Inman park
February 5th, 2012
3:01 pm
@sauvez. I agree that the Inman/Grady Attendence zones have to be reduced. Adding Kirkwood and O4W doesn’t make sense as they are cutting out existing students. I think that O4W seems to be very frustrated and angry with Lin.
To Inman Park From Gm
February 5th, 2012
3:28 pm
I don’t understand why o4wd is frustrated with Lin. The parents and teachers and kids at Lin did not create the problems at Hope Hill. I just don’t understand the mentality that says one neighborhood (o4wd) has the right to blame it’s problems on another neighborhood (lin) and demand that another neighborhood fix it’s schools. It really does make me wonder how anyone could think that way.
anon
February 5th, 2012
5:27 pm
What makes you Mary Lin parents think that SPARK/Morningside are out to get you? We all have friends in the Mary Lin zone, and everyone knows that Mary Lin students can only contribute positively to the Grady cluster. I don’t even know anyone who lives in the Old Fourth Ward; I am certainly not “conspiring” with them. Nor do I know of anyone who is part of any such conspiracy. The concern among my friends and neighbors is that the proposed plans do nothing to address long-term overcrowding and do not create a durable Grady cluster. If we have a true cluster with either two middle schools feeding Grady (and no split feeders) or a single middle school on two campuses (e.g., a sixth grade academy and a 7/8th grade campus), then I am certain that every elementary school that feeds into Grady will see gains and the middle schools and high school will get better and better. The proposed plans do not remove the uncertainty that presently plagues our communities. If we don’t see a solution that will be durable, then there will always be the risk that one of the elementary schools will be pulled out of the cluster. That uncertainty will cause families like mine to by-pass APS altogether in favor of private schools. Many families are worried about starting kids in public elementary schools if there is a good chance they will have to fight for ever fewer private school spots before their kids hit middle school. If, on the other hand, we come up with a solution that introduces a measure of predictability, you will see more buy-in by families with options in all of our communities. The benefits of predictability will also affect real estate. For example, we have good friends who just moved to Atlanta and are renting while looking for a house to buy. Although they had been looking at houses in Va-Hi, Morningside, Inman Park and Candler Park, they told us at dinner last night that they are now focusing exclusively on City of Decatur because they are worried that there will be additional redistricting in the Grady cluster in the next few years. I am sure there are many others who are avoiding all of our neighborhoods because of this continuing uncertainty. And we know of people who sold their house in Candler Park because they feared the effects of redistricting even before any map was proposed. I am sure you know families like that, too. Let’s push for a durable solution for the Grady cluster. It will benefit everyone.
To anon
February 5th, 2012
7:18 pm
You say “Many families are worried about starting kids in public elementary schools if there is a good chance they will have to fight for ever fewer private school spots before their kids hit middle school.”
I agree. Those families that staart in a private school at K or 1 are given first priority for open seats in later grades. When families do public schools and then try to get into private later, they are often turned away.
I think your friends were smart to choose Decatur. I wish I had such foresight. Did you see the news in the AJC about foreclosures today ? Atlanta has the highest anywhere, including Phoenix and Fl. Those forecloses homes bring down all our property values making it impossible for many to sell and leave but… heck, some may decide to just leave without selling.
I know that if my kids were ever zoned for Coan I would do anything, anything, including ditching my mortgage and renting an apartment in another area just to rescue my children from the plague of Coan.
GM
Hunger Games
February 5th, 2012
7:24 pm
@anon – there was one SPARK individual who said it to my face, but has since changed their mind apparently. Except for that I have not heard a single peep from SPARK about wanting Lin to go, so thank you for confirming that. I was referring to a few individuals in Morningside.
I agree with absolutely everything you wrote above at 5:27 about working together to find a middle school solution for the Grady cluster that eliminates the profound sense of instability that prevents many parents from investing themselves in their public schools. Let’s get our LSCs together to figure it out.
One of the key things we need to unlock is alternative grade configurations as accepted APS policy. They are currently locked into a k-5, 6-8, 9-12 model. They do have a couple of “primary centers” that were born from large schools splitting, rather than combining. Everyone needs to send emails and letters to your board members and show up at the meetings to ask for them to consider such solutions as K-8, 5/6, 6, and 9th as tools to have in their box in order to deal most effectively with the fluctuations of population within a cluster.
Good post, thanks.
vh3
February 5th, 2012
8:22 pm
Grady Diversity is right – much of this process is being driven by one neighborhood, 30307. A year before the first set of maps was even released, they were working behind the scenes to make sure their neighborhood wasn’t rezoned. As it stands, the 30307 community isn’t zoned out of Inman in ANY of the maps presented, not one.
But here’s the interesting part:
The former principal at Inman Middle school has said publicly in meetings last year that “while as an educator she understood the need for rezoning, as a parent, she would fight as hard as she possibly could against her area being rezoned.” Where does she live? Off Dekalb Ave. at the edge of the Lin zone, again, something she stated publicly. Where does her middle school child attend school? Inman. Isn’t it convenient that she was moved just this fall into the SRT-3 exec. dir. position? It’s much easier for her to advocate for her and her neighborhood’s concerns behind the scenes than it would have been if she had remained as the principal of Inman.
Is it just coincidence then that Mary Lin being moved to Coan shows up in absolutely NONE of the maps presented so far – none? With Coan sitting so close to the Lin zone, and with seats available, is it any wonder that the rest of the city is thinking WTH? Of course no one thinks it makes any sense to spend money to build a new middle school when there is a useable facility sitting right there!
It is understood that no one wants to go to Coan. Even the people who live near Coan have shunned it. If Mary Lin had been moved to Coan in even one or two of the plans, and that plan was then vetted and talked about, there might be some support for their position, but since it was so obviously an “inside” deal, is there any surprise that the rest of the city is now asking why that idea isn’t being considered? Moving Lin to Coan is such an obvious shift, based on geography and space, and it is such an obvious sham when it never gets put out there.
And I am absolutely not the only one north of Ponce wondering about all this and the role this former principal played in it. Many of us are also wondering why the AJC isn’t all over this piece of the puzzle.
Yes, Mary Lin folks have contributed to Inman and Grady. But things change, and everyone can no longer fit at Inman. Those of us who live closer to Inman and Grady are just tired of being told that we have to support the Lin position when so much of their activity has been behind the scenes and under the table.