Plans to shutdown 13 schools

I am a huge education person and wanted to blog a little about this. Atlanta Public Schools plans to shut down 13 schools. That is huge. I screamed when my county of Dekalb had plans to shut down eight. And I am sure many of you know where these schools are located--in urban communities. After the cheating scandal in Atlanta, I am sure the close of schools does not help.

I found an article from The Atlanta Voice and want your opinion on this issue. Atlanta Public Schools stated the reason for the closing is due to budget. Anyway, read the article and let me know what you think.

Staff and Wire Report
ATLANTA – Public hearings are scheduled to start next week over recommendations to shut down 13 Atlanta public schools – most of them on the city’s south side – as part of a cost-cutting initiative proposed by school superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr.
Community hearings on the controversial proposals will take place March 12, March 13 next week and March 21 and March 22 at various high schools across the city. The district then will finalize its proposal and school board members will approve the final plan at their April 10 meeting. That plan will take effect next school year.
Davis introduced his redistricting plan to the Atlanta school board Monday, telling board members that closing 10 elementary schools and three middle schools would boost efficiency and save the cash-strapped district about $6.5 million in operational expenses – freeing up resources to support and teach students.
“Although APS traditional schools serve 47,000 students, we have seats for 60,000 students,” Davis said in a letter released this week. “Heating, cool and lighting 13,000 empty seats is expensive.”
“Our proposal will eliminate approximately 7,200 of the 13,000-seat excess and generate substantial savings,” he added. “As a result, we will be able to allocate more funds in direct support of students – that is, to provide more counselors, assistant principals, paraprofessionals and special education resources.”
The plan, which would displace about 2,500 students, is the most recent version of a redistricting plan that has been debated since late last year and generated heated public outcry in many circles – including at Monday night’s school board meeting.
Board members debated the plan for hours, including some who expressed concerns about closing schools – especially in communities where several vacant school buildings already exist. Many of the vacant seats are on the district’s south side, while many schools in north Atlanta are overcrowded.
“In doing closures, you decrease morale, you decrease parent involvement, which feeds into decreased student achievement,” said board member LaChandra Butler Burks. “We’re adding more distress onto already distressed communities. Is all that worth a couple hundred thousand dollars?”
Davis said the expected cost savings justify the closures.
“Our driving force is a commitment to children, not to buildings,” he said. “We are heating, cooling, lighting 13,000 empty seats. The money spent [there] can go to counselors, social workers, assistant principals, the kind of robust support the children in the needy communities are not getting.”
Davis said school redistricting, while uncomfortable for some, is needed to adjust for shifts in population throughout the city.
“Redistricting is never an easy or painless process, but it is something most urban school districts must periodically undertake to effectively manage educational resources and ensure continued student academic achievement,” he said in a recent column in The Atlanta Voice.
“Today, the district has critically overcrowded schools in some areas and severely under-enrolled schools in others. This situation wastes resources and adversely impacts efficient operations and potentially student academic achievement.”
The last time APS approved a full redistricting plan was in 2003, he said.
The plan released Monday also calls for schools to be reorganized into clusters, meaning students would stay together as they move to middle and high school. It also calls for renovations and expansions at many schools and support services to be added at others.
Elementary schools slated for closure include: Boyd, Capitol View, Cook, East Lake, Fain, Herndon, Humphries, F.L. Stanton, Thomasville, and White. The middle schools proposed for closure are
Coan, Kennedy and Park.
Buckhead is the only area that won’t be affected by the boundary changes.
Community meetings on the closures will be held March 12 at Douglass High School, March 13 at North Atlanta High School, March 21 at Maynard Jackson High School, and March 22 at Carver High School.