Gearing Up for CSD Reconfiguration
Decatur Metro | May 17, 2010With final approval of the plans for Decatur’s new 5th Avenue 4/5 Academy going before the city commission tonight, it will soon be time to tackle another key component of adding another school to the K-5, red-bricky mix: reconfiguration of the school “attendance zones.”
When will this happen and how will this work? Well, as some of you more devout CSDers may have noticed, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards referenced the process in her recent letter regarding pre-K placement at Clairemont Elementary…
Over the summer, we will be working with Georgia State University to develop three options for redrawing the zoning lines. This is in preparation for presenting options to the community, the SLTs, and the School Board. I hope to have plans available in the fall [2010] so a decision can be made early in the year and families will know which school their child is zoned for in the 2011-2012 school year and beyond.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
In deciding to build a 4/5 Academy at 5th Avenue, one of the key concerns stated by the Reconfiguration Committee and the School Board was maintaining racial diversity within the school system. A key component of the 2003 reconfiguration was extending Oakhurst Elementary’s attendance zone up into northwest Decatur to diversify the student population. Turning Glennwood Elementary into a K-3 again creates a “school-heavy” east side of Decatur, with Oakhurst Elementary the only K-3 west of the unofficial Clairemont/McDonough split.
Assuming the preference that most kids go to the school closest to their respective homes, northwest Decatur again becomes the wild-card.
And before anyone yells “Free Westchester!”, note that the Superintendent’s letter also relays that she will be talking with the School Board about starting a community discussion regarding whether and how to reopen the Scott Boulevard school.
Isn’t it true that Oakhurst and Northwest Decatur don’t look as different in terms of diversity as they did back in 2003? That’s my experience anyway. Oakhurst is much more gentrified now. And the north side of Decatur has attracted more middle and upper-middle class African-American family homeowners compared to 2003 when almost all of the diversity was provided by Decatur Housing Authority families. Not making a value judgement–there’s something lost and gained with the population shifts–but not sure that imbalances exist anywhere near to the degree that they originally did. Oakhurst gets the most positive buzz of any of the elementary schools these days, not to say that the others are inferior.
Agreed that the diversity mix has changed since 2003, especially in Oakhurst. I was going to try to work something into my post about that, but couldn’t manage it in the time allotted.
But has it changed enough to forgo consideration of demographic breakdowns this time around? I’d be surprised if it had.
All this to say that the diversity aspect coupled with the odd spacing of the schools will probably make for some interesting zones.
One section of our street goes to Oakhurst, the other to WInnona – the effect being that neighbors do not go to school together. We are close enough to walk to Oakhurst, though are zoned for Winnona so will not have a walking option. Furthermore, what if we are re-zoned? We woke up at 4:00am to go stand in line for hours in order to garner a coveted spot in our zoned school’s aftercare. Have there been any thoughts given to the aftercare registration system? It’s frustrating that we are oddly zoned to begin with and more so that we may be re-zoned into the district we are actually closest to.
Sorry if I missed this but do we know the cost and how the school is to be funded? Another bond?
Can someone else summarize? It gives me a headache. Twitter version: It’s a done deal and the interest payments will come out of the CSD operating budget which is already declining because of State DOE cutbacks.
Ten million interest only loan based on the assumption that the next DeKalb County Splost will pass in two years (?), and that 1% sales tax will pay it off in five years after that. Interest will be about $400,000 per year out of the operating budget. Total cost about 17 million with interest? Anyone can correct if wrong.
$400,000 would cover about 12 paraprofessionals for the elementary schools, INCLUDING all their benefits, and about 4-5 teachers, including all their benefits, depending on their seniority/degrees etc..
You’re comments reflect the loan structure for the new Fifth Avenue school, correct. These numbers have nothing to do with existing Westchester facility. I wasn’t sure wish school Mike’s question was addressing.
Pretty easy to lay out the basics .. unless there are pockets of stealth kids I don’t know about….
Non-Subsidized Neighborhoods.
Glennwood: Glennwood Estates, Sycamore Ridge and Decatur Heights
Clairemont: Westchester, Great Lakes and Nelson Ferry
Oakhurst: Oakhurst, Lenox Park and College Heights west of Candler
Winnona: Winnona Park, College Heights east of Candler and Midway Woods
Subsidized/public housing –
Glennwood: Allen Wilson
Clairemont: Gateway
Oakhurst: Spring Point, Oakview Apartments and the subsidized housing on Olympic.
Winnona: Swanton Heights
This would have to be tweaked if we annexed or if the big project near East Decatur Station ever comes to fruition.
Pretty good guess I’d say.
Are you making up for the disproportionate amount of “non-subsidized” at Clairemont vs. Glennwood by sending Allen Wilson kids to Glennwood?
Two questions.
1. I’m sure I just missed them, but have traffic studies been published showing the impact of a citywide school at the 5th Avenue location on: (a) automobile traffic on the railroad crossings and roads adjacent to Fifth Avenue; and (b) walkers and bike riders? If so, have we identified “pinch points” in likely commuting patterns and have we developed any plans to address those?
2. Has anyone developed proposed attendance lines for 5 or 6 K-5s (assuming Fifth Avenue as the 5th school and Westchester as the 6th school, and then vice versa), as opposed to the current configuration? Is that one of the options being drawn by the Georgia State folks with the Supreintendent? I’d just be curious what those lines would look like. More information never hurts.
-Tom Stubbs
Tom, Rosser did a parking analysis which can be found on pages 27 and 28 of the supporting materials for last night’s commission meeting.
Regarding drawing up options for 5 or 6 K-5s, no. The options being drawn up for this fall will be for 4 K-5s. The decision was made to stick with the K-3s last year. K-5s were on the table, but ultimately failed to gain enough favor from the reconfiguration committee, the school board or a majority of community members.
I would not go so far as to say that “community members” have been polled on K-5. The most comprehensive survey done in Decatur was the last school strategic planning sessions. The consensus of that group was for K-5s, and that was done when the economic variation in neighborhoods was far more dramatic than the current situation. Moreover, whatever factors the reconfiguration committee considered, no one told them that the young student growth was going to be anything like what we are experiencing, a growth that has necessitated far more use of trailers than anyone in the administration projected. While the literature on grade configuration is limited, what it does show is that longer grade spans remain the configuration best designed for at risk kids who suffer most from transitions. For all the talk about who is committed to the kids who are most at risk, we ignore those conclusions with the current approach. Of course, parent involvement, the hallmark of our wonderful schools, is also better facilitated by longer grade configurations. Moreover, the K-5 configuration gives us the greatest flexibility to absorb fluctuations in population and, if we’ve learned anything over the past years, it is underestimating school population growth is extremely disruptive.
The transportation work — automobile, walkers and bicyclers — done in connection with this project is not careful or consoling.
The opening of Fifth Avenue represents a wonderful moment to take a look at this issue and should not be missed. The interesting approaches of theme schools with lotteries for cross-neighborhood polinization are creative approaches that offer a lot of advantages over the current system.
The inflexibility of narrow grade ranges vs longer grade ranges like K-5 or preK-5 is the reason that some school systems have dropped the 4/5 Academy model. I believe people have mentioned the Gainesville system as one and I know of one in the North from relatives. Having had a child who experienced at least some of a K-5 experience and the 4/5 Academy in CSD, I’m pretty neutral on the experience; both were fine. Not sure about the research but usually what’s shared with us are superficial review articles or opinion pieces, not rigorous objective evidence. But to be fair to all, educational research can be pretty soft science and I think popular trends shape educational directions more than hard evidence, e.g. No Child Left Behind.
At the beginning of this last set of reconfiguration discussions (2008 and on), some of us expressed our concerns that severe financial constraints would come to public education because of what was going on with the economy in the world at large. I wish the predictions hadn’t been realized but they have. Even though it is in much better shape than some other local school systems, CSD now has to furlough teachers and staff and cut back on paraprofessionals and probably make other cost-cutting decisions that I don’t know about. For that reason, any reconfiguration and/or redistricting should estimate costs carefully and share them with the school community and tax-payers. That doesn’t mean that the cheapest choice is the best choice but it does mean that we can’t afford to use the wrong assumptions as happened with the enrollment projections of 2003-2004. It’s better to admit that we just don’t know and can’t predict than to use the wrong numbers.
For a starting point on fairly rigorous examination of the effect of grade span and school size on student performance, you might enjoy reading the survey article at http://www.eastlongmeadow.org/Schools/elem1.pdf and the references cited there. The literature developed by Alspaugh, Howley, Bickel and others continue to find longer grade span to be positively related to student performance, especially for at risk kids. Here are some more references:
Alspaugh, John W. (1998, Sept/Oct). Achievement Loss Associated With the Transition to
Middle school and High School. The Journal of Educational Research, 92, 20-25.
Bickel, Robert; Howley, Craig; Williams, Tony; Glascock, Catherine. (2000). Will the Real “Texas Miracle in Education” Please Stand Up? Rural School and Community Trust, Randolph, VT., 48p.
Coladarci, Theodore; Hancock, Julie. (2002). “Grade-Span Configuration.” Journal of Research in Rural Education, v17 n3 p189-92, Win 2002. (No. ED 467714)
Howley, Craig. (1994). “The Academic Effectiveness of Small-Scale Schooling (An Update).” (ERIC Digest No. ED 372897).
Howley, Craig. (2000). “Research on Smaller Schools: What Education Leaders Need to Know
to Make Better Decision.” The Informed Educator Series: Educational Research
Service. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED 453996).
Howley, Craig; Strange, Marty; Bickel, Robert. (2000). “Research about School Size and School Performance in Impoverished Communities.” ERIC Clearinghouse on Rural Education and Small Schools, Charleston, WV. (ERIC Digest No. ED 448968)
Howley, Craig. (2001, April). “The Disappearing Local School in Two Appalachian States”
Paper presented at the annual conference of the Appalachian Studies Association.
Linwood, WV. (ERIC Document Reproduction Services No. ED 451018).
Paglin, Catherine; Fager, Jennifer. (1997) “Grade Configuration: Who Goes Where?” Northwest Regional Educational Lab, Portland, OR., 48p.
Renchler, Ron. (2000, Spring). “Grade Span.” Research Roundup: The National Association of
Elementary School Principles, 16n3, 5-8.
Renchler, Ron. (2002). “School Organization: Grade Span. Trends and Issues.” Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 8p. (ERIC No. ED472994) Also available at http://eric.uoregon.edu
Wren, Stephanie. (2003). “The Effect of Grade Span Configuration and School-to-School Transition on Student Achievement.” Michigan Educational Assessment Program, 14p.
That’s a pretty interesting study, Tom. Gotta say, though, it’s difficult to take very seriously an article which I presume was intended for scholarly publication– but whose author apparently doesn’t understand the proper use of “affect” and its homophone, “effect”.
Re affect/effect: You would think that a school system website would proofread for grammar! It relates to two pet peeves of mine: 1) Things going out from educators with grammatical or spelling or computational errors. I have to say that I see this much less in CSD than from the Los Angeles Public School System; and 2) The quality of evidence that educators use–much seems to be review articles, opinion pieces, whatever folks could get their hands on that supports their point of view. I understand that educational science is by nature soft–one is measuring the behavior of complex biological beings, not well-defined, single dimension points like ph or mass or temperature. But more rigor could be applied to the analysis that is done, if it’s even warranted, and especially to the interpretation.
Nonetheless, I can live with these weaknesses as long as the educators are spending quality time with my children and aren’t making poor decisions that affect them.
Just to be clear, I was referencing last year’s reconfiguration, not the 2003 reconfiguration. We hashed all this out during that process. Even so, CSD wanted to maintain the 4/5 model.
If, by “CSD,” you mean the superintendent and the school board as currently configured, you are absolutely correct.
Is Tom Stubbs testing out themes for a run for the School Board next year against Julie Rhame?
That would be interesting!
As did the community, Tom. Many of the 12 options that CSD brought to the community for consideration included doing away with the K-3 model. The community then came up with a 13th option, in a much more organic fashion, that supported the k-3 model.
Ok, this is hearsay and I confess to it. But I understand from folks who were either on the reconfiguration work group or attended the meetings that there was a strong push from Central Office, that directed the work group, to retain the 4/5 Academy model, to the point that the committee asked to talk to teachers from the 4/5 Academy to try to get more frontline feedback. At the same time, at least some of the committee (as well as the general community) were very concerned about having the 4/5 at Renfroe. So when the work group came up with a 13th option, 4/5 at Fifth Avenue, some folks felt that they better accept this compromise. They didn’t feel that they could win the battle of challenging the value of the 4/5 concept so they settled for 4/5 at Fifth Avenue. This doesn’t mean that it won’t be a fine choice but I’m not sure it’s as simple as the community coming up with a 13th model that was enthusiastically and overwhelmingly supported as the best choice. I think it was the best choice of what the reconfiguration work group thought could happen in the CSD environment.
People who actually were on the committee and/or attended all of the meetings should feel free to correct this admittedly hearsay info.
The community didn’t come up with Fifth AVe as the 13th option. CSD Admin did. The “community ” supported it in lieu of the Renfroe option.
What about the part of current Oakhurst zoning that’s north of the tracks, e.g. Adair/Drexel, Pinetree, Ponce West, etc. Is that considered Lenox Park? Never the designation Lenox Park.
Meant to say never heard of the designation Lenox Park.
The Lenox Place neighborhood includes Melrose, Drexel, Adair and cross streets. It does not extend past Ponce.
Ok, so Sweettea’s rubric would put Pinetree/Woodlawn/Coventry/Nelson Ferry/Scott north of Ponce and cross-streets into Clairemont’s district instead of into Oakhurst’s. Makes some sense in terms of natural neighborhoods and walking patterns. Back in the day of the Free State of Westchester (as opposed to Westchester-free which is what CSD is right now), families on those streets usually walked to school whereas kids south of Ponce took the “Blue Bus” (when folks weren’t driving their personal vehicles which is still the transportation of choice of all children who don’t like to get up in the morning).
Yup, we’re Lenox Place, despite the fact that we have no streets by that name in our neighborhood. We were in the Westchester district until they closed that school, but moved to Oakhurst when they redistricted.
I do hope that the school system learned something after that last redistricting.
The process needs to be open and above board and no community ought to feel like they got bamboozled. What happened, IMHO, was that they openly said they were going to do one thing–close Clairemont–and then at the last minute, with virtually no warning, voted to do another thing–close Westchester and leave Clairemont open. No advance warning, no additional hearings, it was a done deal the same time we heard of it. The community all felt they had been lied to.
Now, the board MAY have made the best decision possible. And they swear they did. But people did not feel it was fair and were very angry about it. Many still are, frankly. Not just cranks, either, but longtime volunteers who’d spent a lot of time and money supporting the school. I don’t think it was good for the school system to so thoroughly alienate those people and lose their trust and support.
This time around, I don’t have a dog in the fight. Both of my kids will be at the high school.
But I’m also concerned about the effect on traffic.
Instead of redistricting everybody, why not make one elementary school a themed school?
That will be the school for a Montessori approach, a traditional theme school, a year-round school, or a math/science magnet, or a technology magnet,. or something like that?
Part of Oakhurst is in Winona Park. Some of McCoy Street is in Winona for some weird reason an Adair is in Oakhurst.
Can someone point to a map with the school districts? I found this PDF
http://www.csdecatur.net/schoolzones/schoolzoneinfo.pdf
at the CSD site, but it’s by address, so it’s hard to envision how the school districts are currently divided geographically.
What an excellent suggestion, Paula. Hopefully Decatur Metro can get a map from CSD. I can’t find it on their website.
There is a huge map on the wall inside Winnona Park, and I think there’s one in the front hall of Glennwood too.
True. There is also one as you enter central office. But alas, they are a little inaccessible if you are not walking the halls of our schools and I bet there are plenty of folks who would really like to click on a website and see the zones. It would be sooooooooo easy for CSD to add a map to their website! And oh so helpful.
I have a lot to post on this reconfiguration thread, but I am short on time. Thanks for starting the conversation Decatur Metro. I hope we can keep it going as new information emerges.
Ask and you shall receive!
A reader (not sure if they want to be identified) just sent in a map with the current CSD school attendance zones. Also the pre-2003 zones are identified with red dashes.
CLICK HERE to view.
Thanks, DM! Next time I’m going to ask for a pony, too.
I hope they look at equity as far as walkability and combine their goals with the safe routes to school initiative. With the 4/5 going to College Heights, if they aren’t thoughtful, some neighborhoods will have to cross Adair/Howard (no light) and the tracks for all schools PreK-8 with all schools over a mile away while other neighborhoods will never cross the tracks until high school with all PreK-8 schools within a 1/2 mile.
On a related note, the cost of busing this year is $200,000 per year higher than it was before reconfiguration. That’s $200,000 per year! How many paraprofessionals is that karass?!
Enough instructional support to make a difference in academic achievement!
Fuel prices are about twice what they were in 2003. But don’t get me wrong – I’m sure that the school board is to blame for that as well.
Huzzah!
It’s not a question of blame; it’s a question of reality. If fuel prices are up (and actually they have fluctuated up and down) while CSD funding has decreased, then transportation costs have to be considered even more heavily in decisions.
BTW, I’m not arguing against bus service for those who need it. Some families would definitely be in dire straights without it. A parent shouldn’t have to decide between getting their child safely to school and getting to work on-time to pay for a home and food.
I agree that walkability is an important issue but I wonder what percentage of CSD families are truly committed to walking/biking to school.
My morning walks take me past both Clairemont and Glenwood. Sometimes I pass Renfroe ,too. There is quite a bit of traffic congestion at those schools . Many cars pull in dropping off a single child. Yes, I see families/students walking and biking but it looks like just as many parents are driving their kids to school.
If the driving families would put their kids on the bus, it would be worth the CSD transportation costs to alleviate traffic congestion and pollution from individual cars.
As far as the transportation costs going up after the last reorganization. You must look at how much we’ve saved on staffing costs by being able to consolidate classes and maximize state funding for staff positions. Before the reorganization, we were often funding under capacity classes of the same grade at multiple schools. We got no money from the state for those classes because our schools were not large enough to meet the state funding rules. It may all balance out.
If “walkability” were truly an important goal for CSD, we wouldn’t be building a community wide 4/5 school in the far south west corner of our city.
Let’s be honest. It’s an important goal when it supports an agenda and when it gets in the way, oh well…..
Decatur is a small geographic area. In virtually any other school system, I bet the distance to “the far south west corner of our city ” would be considered a neighborhood school.
There’s a difference between a “neighborhood” school and a “walkable” school. I have tested this issue many times in both the school and recreational environment, and the average kindergartener will happily walk a half mile at a reasonable pace before slowing down and meandoring or dissolving into whininess. At the 4/5 level, you can stretch that threshold up to 0.75 miles for sure, maybe 1.0 miles.
Can we afford all-walkable, all-diverse, schools with all reasonably-sized classrooms all the time. I don’t know but I bet Garrett Goebel can run the numbers.
The 5th Ave option for the 4/5 academy was apparently not even considered by CSD at first – the 12 options they brought up for community input did not include it, and was only added due to community input. So I’d say that the lack of emphasis on walkability is due to the community, not CSD.
The city was also for 5th Ave before CSD as I recall.
The city was for CSD utilizing a school site that was falling into disrepair. Some individual employees of the city may have stated a preference, but they are not authorized to speak on behalf of “the city.” In fact, on Monday night as the commissioner’s discussed the need for a community transportation plan for Fifth Ave. school one commissioner reminded the others that their job was not to evaluate the appropriateness of the location, but to respond to the plan presented. All this to say, I don’t think it is quite accurate to say “The city was also for 5th Ave before CSD as I recall.”
Unfortunately, Fifth Avenue was not part of the Reconfiguration discussion in the beginning. At that time central office expected to receive a vo tech grant for the Fifth Avenue property renovations. This funding did not come thru and Fifth Avenue came into play long after all the other 12 options had been presented. (Note Fifth Avenue was not a part of options 1-12) At about the same time, csd realized that Renfroe might not be an acceptable 4/5 solution for our community. I think you know the rest of the story.
http://www.decaturmetro.com/2009/03/26/strong-support-for-5th-avenue-as-45-academy/
No question that closing schools with 90 kids in them had to happen. The difference of opinion was always how to deal with schools that were already full and successful but on the north side so some folks felt at least one had to be closed to make things fair for the south side. But at this point we are busting at the seams and having to cut back on instruction as measured by furloughs and number of paraprofessionals available to assist teachers so they can do the differentiated instruction they have to accomplish with a fair amount of challenges. (Thank you teachers and paraprofessionals!) Other cutbacks are probably happening that I don’t know about. We don’t know what will happen next. If anyone told me they knew what was going to happen with enrollment or the CSD budget over the next 10 years, given the economy and other unpredictable factors in the world right now like fuel supplies, global conflicts, politics, demographic shifts, state DOE priorities, etc., I wouldn’t trust them.
So flexibility seems in order. A configuration with lots of short grade spans offers less room to maneuver shifting numbers of children at each grade level. Is that a deal breaker? I don’t know. How would the community feel, north and south side both, if Fifth Avenue were built (which sounds like a done deal) but it became a neighborhood K-5 school rather than a 4/5 Academy? I don’t know. I don’t even know if it’s feasible.
I don’t know much about what is happening now. I do not have children in CSD. I know more about the time of the reconfiguration that created the 4/5. Many parents did not consider the north side elementary schools to be successful. Those schools often only had one class per grade level. Differentiated instruction was very difficult then, too. There was little opportunity for collaboration among teachers with in the same grade level. No way for a child to be placed with a teacher who best fit his/her learning style. PE, music , art special ed and counseling staff were often shared by more than one school. They spent a too large portion of their time traveling between schools. Children sometimes needed to be sent out of their home catchment area in order to get the special ed services they needed.
There were almost yearly budget crisis then, too. On several occasions during the 1990’s cutbacks were debated and sometimes made in media center staff, art programs and parapros.
I hate to be re hashing old arguments, but I feel I must question your statement that the northside K5 schools were doing great and that the reconfiguration was all about low performing schools on the south side of town.
I’d like to hear more about how a different configuration will give more flexibility in moving students. As I see it , the greatest flexibility available is to have all students of the same grade in one school. That maximizes state funding and allows for the greatest efficiency in differentiation of instruction. Of course this isn’t possible but the current set up with 3 or more classes of each grade is , in my mind , more flexible than schools with only 1 or perhaps 2 classes per grade.
Your perspective predates mine. I only know 2001 and on. But at the time of the 2003-2004 reconfiguration debates, Westchester was certainly a high quality experience with at least two teacher options at each grade level except only one preK. Clairemont attendees seemed to feel that their school was also high quality although I don’t know how many classrooms per grade level existed. Glennwood was touted as being a rising star with much recent improvement and lots of neighborhood support, similar to what was happening at Oakhurst, perhaps a year or so ahead in terms of full neighborhood participation. I don’t remember quality or low enrollment being argued as a reason to close Westchester, Clairemont, or Glennwood.
Re collaboration and pooling of resources: I agree that that’s a plus but collaboration goes up and down grade levels as well as across. Which is more important, I don’t know. All of the schools are much bigger now and will continue to be, no matter how they are sliced and diced. And I think all of the schools, K-3 as well as 4/5, are requiring more collaboration among teachers than used to occur. However, I also know that folks expected more collaboration at Glennwood than turned out to be practical at the level of the children (vs the level of the teachers). Except for the “specials”, students are still taught by one teacher in one classroom without a lot of mixing with other classrooms, especially since the lunchroom is so small. Since some teachers are a lot stronger in science and/or math than others, the hope had been to do more team teaching in which the students got the benefit of different teachers’ expertise. It just might not be practical at the elementary school level where there’s only so many things for so many different students that can be done in 6 1/2 hours.
Re DM’s comment below about diversity being an issue because of the court order. I think it should be an issue regardless of whether or not the court order was dismissed. And I think we should consider socio-economic diversity as well as racial diversity. This should be about avoiding an uneven experience for any of the students, not just about having the numbers look ok to a court. But there’s always been several ways for school systems to achieve diversity including districting, bussing, magnet schools, weighted lotteries etc. If some folks are interested in having 5 or 6 K-5s, three on the southside (Winnona Park, Fifth Avenue, and Oakhurst) and twor or three on the northside (Clairemont, Glennwood +/- Westchester), someone ought to be able to run some numbers since the school system should have race, ethnicity, and free/reduced lunch status for all students. Using reasonable district lines that are walkability-friendly, would the schools look more alike compared to the current schools, less alike, or similar in diversity? Where’s that Garrett Goebel? (Not saying that he supports an 5 K-5 approach just that he’s good at running the numbers).
Re: walking to Glennwood. I live in the area where our neighborhood school used to be Glennwood Elementary, a PK-5. The only time we had traffic jams in front of school was when it rained. Otherwise, most of the kids walked or rode their bikes (hand-in-hand with siblings, I might add). Nowadays, there are still loads of kids who walk/ride to school each day–I’d say more at Glennwood than any other school in the city. But not as many as before.
With the way schools are set up now, many families don’t have the option anymore. Our elementary school (now Winnona Park) is almost exactly 2 miles from our house, across the tracks and several major streets and intersections. Little kindergarten or first-grade legs will not make it to WP in a reasonable time for the rest of us to get to work/school on time.
You would undoubtedly see more commitment to walking/riding if more people had the option.
What about the bus ? Group transportation is also an environmentally friendly way to travel. That,too, would help with the traffic jams.
My kids attended Glennwood,too. The enrollment was much lower then. We usually walked but one of my children had a weekly tutor appointment after school . I had to drive to pick up in order to get to that appointment on time. Lots of parents were arriving at the Holy Trinity lot after school. Maybe every one had specific appointments after school, I don’t know.
There may not have been traffic jams in front of Glennwood but given the enrollment at the time, I’d say a significant percentage of the families drove their children to and from school. They parked at Holy Trinity and walked across the street. Those children left when walkers were dismissed but met their parents out front and walked over to their cars .
You are right that the bus is the next best choice. My kids ride the bus home although the morning bus picks up at 7:10 for an 8:15 start, so we make the choice to drive in the morning–probably another big reason you see a lot of drivers in the mornings.
Getting up a little earlier is one of those choices to be made to live in a more environmentally friendly lifestyle. This applies to families putting kids on the school bus and adults riding MARTA/Cliff, carpooling or biking to work.
Much talk here about the need to teach children the benefits of walking and biking to school. Seems like that could be extended to teach them about the value of group transportation, too.
I think back to my childhood. Almost no one lived close enough to the schools to walk – everyone rode the school bus. At some points in my school career, I was among the first stops in the morning and rode for 90 minutes before getting to school . No one even thought to question this . Most families had only one car used by the breadwinner to drive to work. Parents chauffeuring kids to school just didn’t happen .
Once Fifth Avenue opens, I think CSD will realize that utilizing Fifth Avenue is also going to significantly effect their transportation costs which will also offset more of the savings from this configuration. At the City Commissioners meeting on Monday, the commission spent a lot of time talking about the need for CSD to develop a transportation plan for walking/ biking, etc. to Fifth Avenue since it is not centrally located. We will be paying for increased city services to manage our cars as well if people do not use the bus, walk or bike.
Think of the following numbers:
Glennwood is 2.33 miles from Fifth Avenue….and from most other neighborhoods in our community. Third Avenue in Oakhurst is 2.44 miles away from Glennwood.
Fifth Avenue is anywhere from 2.33 to 4 miles away from almost everyone in the current Clairemont District.
Let’s not kid ourselves. There are only so many hours in the day and many of us work and/or have more than one child to take to school in the morning. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where additional busing expenditures would not result from the Fifth Ave. location. I really wish more of my money could go to parapros and teachers. So do my kids.
TeeRuss – Maybe we actually agree. Who knows where gas prices are going to go. They are very volatile.
I just did some quick research on the internet so this isn’t exhaustive but…
Cost of gas in May 2004: $2 gallon
Cost of gas in May 2009: $1.86 gallon
Cost of gas in May 2010: $2.86 gallon
Rachelf, I doubt we agree, based on what you are implying – that the CSD board reconfigured without any consideration of the impacts to transportation costs, nor without factoring in any other cost savings from the reduced overhead costs. I mean, if you really believe that they didn’t do any projections or due diligence in 2003, then I don’t know what to tell you.
And the average cost of gas in 2003, which is the year that you quoted, was around $1.53. This year it has averaged around 2.83. This is based off the Central Atlantic average prices quoted at the following site:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/petroleum/data_publications/wrgp/mogas_history.html
Like it or not, CSD really did use faulty data to project enrollment back in 2003.
So we agree that they did some due diligence, and looked at some data. You say it was faulty data – I don’t know enough to make a judgement. I will say that I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been to estimate how many hundreds of families would be moving in from Candler Park et al due to the phenomenal success of the reconfiguration. Perhaps they were trying to be modest about what a great plan they had.
But still, there’s no excuse for looking backwards at solid data and drawing the wrong conclusions. For example, attributing a 34% increase in transportation costs to reconfiguration, when fuel prices are up 85%.
In case anyone wants to check my work:
2003 transportation costs = $624,076
2003 gasoline prices = $1.53
2010 transportation costs = $837,779
2010 gasoline prices = $2.83
Last year prices were around the 2003 level, but the bus cost was $730,000. It isn’t linear, but it is going up, up, up. Why would you want to spend so much money on fuel instead of education?
Please refer to my earlier link – last year prices average $2.36, which, when you chart it against the 2003 and 2010 transportation costs and gas prices, pretty much proves that it IS linear – It’s about the fuel prices.
And please don’t go reductio ad absurdum on me. I’m not in favor of paying more for transportation and less on education. You couldn’t possibly think that. That was an extremely disrespectful reply.
I’m going to respectfully disagree with your idea on linear increases as the average gasoline cost in 2009 was about $2.00. Since you aren’t in favor of paying more for transportation, do you think there are ways to decrease this cost?
The average cost of gasoline was $2.36, not $2.00. I’ve provided the link and posted it twice now.
But let’s play along with your argument – you’re saying that student transportation costs went up $100k from last year to this year, and that this is because of a reconfiguration that happened in 2003.
Why did it take 6 years for reconfiguration to impact transportation costs? Shouldn’t it have happened immediately?
Though it doesn’t seem to be as hot a button as “walkability” here, diversity will still be a big deal when it comes to drawing these districts.
Remember that as of 2007, Decatur was one of three school systems in the state that was still under a desegregation order from a 1969 court ruling that found 81 school districts in the state unlawfully regulated “a racially dual system of public education in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution.”
Decatur was freed from that order in 2007 in large part because of the 2003 reconfiguration. So look for it to play a much more prominent role in discussions than it is here.
DM – This was the elephant in the room of the 03 changes. Everyone knew it was a major part of the situation but there was much reluctance to discuss it openly.
I believe focus on walkability and a very narrow definition of “neighborhood school” became , for at least some, a way to protect the status quo without opening debate about diversity and equal access in CSD.
That may have been true for some. But many discussed it openly as it should be. The discussion about diversity should be open so that we are not accusing one another of secret motives. For those whose work, beliefs, values, interests, hobbies, and even family make up were in total support of diversity, it was so hurtful during 2003-2004 to be labelled as not caring about all children just because one thought that the enrollment estimates were way off and fewer schools should be closed. Another elephant in the room is that many folks tried to get better data to CSD and suggested alternatives that would have also improved diversity and performance in the schools.
I know of no one on either side of the debate over the schools who does not have a sincere belief in the importance of diversity in our schools. That being said, the issue of the desegregation order is a red herring. As Paul Jones showed the school system for years, the desgregation order could have been eliminated long before the re-configuration. (For example, at the very time it was eliminating M-to-M bussing, DeKalb got out from under its desgregation order ahead of us even though it had far more “racially identifiable” schools than we ever had in Decatur.) The Justice Department has not challenged successfully any K-5 schools such as ours where any dispararity in racial composition across a school system (and there would be little today) is due to underlying housing patterns. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that a school system is under no obligation to re-distribute children to unwind private choices about housing. With all due respect, the threat of the Justice Department review was hollow and should not be a factor in how we proceed.
What should be a concern is providing the best possible education, especially for our at-risk children. We will and should have diverse schools with K-5s. The current system, whatever its admitted advantages, is not as strong for at-risk kids, adds to traffic congestion, diminishes parent involvement, reduces the ease with which students can walk to schools, shifts money from instruction to transportation and has not proven to be a particular cost saver. A longer grade span is far from perfect and the current arrangement absolutely has advantages. The door is shut on positive changes for our schools only if we want it to be shut, though.
Interesting info. Thanks Tom.
But regardless of whether it was a red herring or not in terms of actual legal threat, it doesn’t really seem like the sort of thing Decatur would want to have attached to it.
Why then didn’t it get out of the desegregation order earlier if there were other ways of dealing with it?
There are lots of theories, but the most reasonable one is that it simply took some time and money to prepare the petition to have the order removed. When you’ve got lots of acute fires on your desk already, as all of the good folks working on our schools do, that kind of non-urgent, non-critical issue (that costs money to address) is easy to kick down the road. We could have, however, gotten out of the order almost at any time. We HAD to do it after the reconfiguraiton because the school board tried to act like their actions were in some way aimed at redressing problems we had under the order. Nothing could be further from the truth. Someone can always complain to the Justice Department, as they did in ’03, and Justice will look, but there is no and was no case or legal reason under the Order for us to close a northern school (that was substantially integrated, by the way) just because we closed a dramatically underattended school on the south side.
It’s the inequity of walkability that is bugging me. This is not an issue about the past. It is an issue about the future.
Can you clarify this statement a bit?
Rachel can speak for herself, but you’ll notice that our schools that serve the entire city — the middle and high school — are centrally located. If I could remember my econometrics better, I’d recall which sum of the squares is minimized by that arrangement, but I’m too senile to pull that off. In contrast, when a school that serves the entire city is located in one corner of the city, you have maximized the number of folks for whom walking is a poor option. The minority of folks living in that corner of the city have a neighborhood school-type walk. Others have a long walk and still others have the longest walk you can take and stay within the City.
Wasn’t one of the original options to place the 4/5 school on the Renfroe property? I thought that was summarily rejected by parents because they didn’t want there 4th graders going to school with 8th graders.
It would be better to have the 4/5 in a centrally located spot but we just don’t have that much open land available in the center of Decatur.
Tom – I’ve heard from many parents that they think the 4-5 academy has been a good academic experience for their kids. This includes parents of special needs students. The main complaint I hear from parents regarding Glennwood is that it is crowded.
I am not sure how to measure success with at risk and special needs students – is it test scores or promotions rates ? Do you have any data to back up that here in Decatur students are suffering because of the short grade span?
Decatur High School has quite a bit of unused property. Where was that site during the discussions?
Correction, I should have said under utilized property.
Won’t a good bit of the under utilized space be taken up with the new vocational center ?
I just want the school board to think about the system as a whole. When you put your two communal schools in one area of the city, it creates a very walkable district for some children and a very unwalkable district for others. It’s like Decatur is two systems.
Yup. Two systems. I think it’s politics. I guess for a long time, Decatur’s school politics favored the north side. Now it seems to be favoring the south side. Can we require that School Board members live in the middle of town for a while and get away from this northside/southside thing? Or maybe we should all do that live-in-someone-else’s-shoes thing. For one month, everyone on the south side has to housesit on the north side somewhere and everyone on the north side has to do the opposite, including walking to each other’s schools. Everyone in the middle of town has to rotate in a circle.
Putting in my early bid for a south side handy person who likes to do repairs!
“Inequity of Walkability”? Really?
Tom Stubbs apparently believes that proper community input only occurs when he agrees the outcome. We have had two school board elections where the recinfiguration was a primary issue and Tom’s side lost.
As mentioned above, using 5th Ave as the 4/5 Academy was actually a result of community input.
BTW, I also don’t understand why some think that resident in extreme northeast Decatur are more deserving of a school than people in extreme southeast Decatur, but that is another matter.
Decatur seems to have moved on but Tom has not. That might explain why 71% of Decatur voters voted for someone other than Tom Stubbs in the recent state senate election.
Thanks, Marshall, for that careful analysis of the issues. For what it’s worth, Marshall, I publicly supported the re-building of Fifth Avenue and still do, whatever it’s use. I may not agree with the 4-5 school, but I agree that 5th Avenue needs to be a school again.
As to my commitment to all of Decatur, I tutored in Oakhurst and Fifth Avenue before it was closed. I served as president of Oakhurst-based The Phoenix School and worked at it for years. I represented indigent folks arrested in Decatur for free for 6 years, spending days and nights with their families in the housing projects and in Oakhurst. So, I will stand second to no one about commitment to the entire City.
This is not about one portion of the City against another. It’s about the wonderful opportunity the new school presents to examine a lot of our school issues. Indeed, the administration proposed a de facto reconfiguration when it proposed placing additional trailers at Clairemont just last month (without consulting the SLT at Clairemont or the systemwide SLT). So, things are a long way from settled.
That leads to the two good points that Marshall makes. First, Marshall accurately picked up the fact that I feel that longer grade spans are in the best interests of our children and, especially, at-risk kids. If I make a lousy advocate, I am not shy about that position. Second, more importantly, as his comments make clear, feelings are still hard from the 2003 reconfiguration. No matter how many studies I show to support longer grade spans as important for the at-risk kids we should worry about most, no matter how many assumptions on which the 2003 reconfiguration have proven incorrect (and in line with folks who disagreed with the reconfiguration), no matter how every projected benefit for the reconfiguration has not materialized, folks like Marshall fall back to old worn cliches and ignore the substance. The current chair called me the “worst person” she knows. In that vein, the board as currently configured has a difficult time considering seriously any future option with K-5. During the reconfiguration discussion, it was perpetually described by board members as going backwards, at best, and with more ominous overtones otherwise.
That’s why new voices are needed in leadership. We have heard many of them over the last year and doubtless will hear more in the coming months. Where we go from here is limited only by our graciousness and our openness.
Tom, I agree that it is a very long stretch to say that “community members” have been polled on their preference for 4/5 over K-5 schools. In fact, it is my understanding that CSD and the board chose to not issue a system wide survey to the parents on this specific question during the reconfiguration process. The reconfiguration committee consisted of 20 paid CSD employees and 10 parents.
Everyone casts their votes for different reasons, but I think the closest thing to a parent poll on many things here in Decatur…. configuration, spending at fifth avenue, etc. was taken last November. Valarie won her school board seat by 26 votes over Rob Pope and Mark won by +/-160 votes over Garrett Goebel. The incumbents just barely held onto their seats. This does not a mandate make.
While I certainly wish my candidates of choice had won, I do not consider this a case of “losing sides.” I have witnessed some progress over recent months between the board, central office and “the other side” as you call us. We are all working toward the same goal .. serving our children’s needs. We just offer different approaches to be considered.
I should have said the other side as Marshall calls us.
I think that the non-incumbents did incredibly well for never having run for anything in Decatur before and not being one of the usual names around town. Usually the incumbents don’t even have any opposition. And the folks with all the energy behind the challenger campaigns were totally new faces, new names, new issues. It’s a good thing to keep things fresh and issues out on the table even if it makes life a little harder for CSD at times. It’s when things operate under the radar screen without a lot of visibility that things can go wrong, even for good folks, e.g. what seems to have happened to Superintendent Lewis in DeKalb County.
Why should only parents be polled on configuration preferences ? If CSD does choose to do a survey it should be city wide.
Sometimes I think CSD parents forget that it isn’t just about their opinions and preferences. All taxpayers deserve a say in these issues.
I agree. And the System Charter allows that kind of input but CSD hasn’t fully utilized the potential yet. Each School Leadership Team has a community member on it. However, there could be much more input built in.
Effective businesses often ask for feedback from their end users after a significant policy/procedural change is made.
I did not suggest a system wide poll on reconfiguration. I suggested a survey which would allow parents ( current and past end users) to provide FEEDBACK on their family’s (parent, child) experience with the 4/5 Academy. Of course, this information would be only one factor of many which would influence the effectiveness of the 4/5 configuration.
Since the 4/5 configuration is a driver for millions of dollars of new debt for our community, I just think it would have been appropriate to get more comprehensive FEEDBACK on the change, from both parents and TEACHERS. And yes, individuals did have the opportunity to do so at the showcase meetings……………….
I don’t get it about extreme northeast Decatur–do you mean Glennwood? Winnona Park? And extreme southeast Decatur is what? College Heights? Winnona Park?
Tom’s reply did not deserve a personal attack.
I agree with Rachel. Even though I don’t agree with Tom (or Rachel) much, he’s a dedicated, consistent guy and certainly has more moxie than I’ll ever dream of having. I think that you can utterly disagree with a person without judging or personally attacking them. The world is more interesting with lots of opinions.
.. well, I think so anyway.
That being said, we all need to move on and not expect the world+10 from our public schools. They can’t be all things to all people all the time, especially in these times. It ain’t perfect, but aren’t you glad we aren’t in one of the county systems? Or in Greece for that matter.
And we can all be thankful for a city government that keeps us safe from tree houses.
Boy does this thread bring back memories…and a headache. I remember being challenged as to whether I was a registered voter or some such thing back in 2003 by some citizens group who challenged signatures on a petition, I believe? That still smarts as I was (IMO) clearly targeted for my outspoken position at that time (subtlety not beng one of my strong suits).
If I had a hat on, I would take it off to all of you Decaturites going through this again. I am exhausted FOR you.
The accusations that folks challenging the reconfiguration decisions didn’t care about all children is what I remember as the ugliest. Racism should always be brought to light. But fighting racism is cheapened when the accusation is used indiscriminately.