5th Avenue doesn’t even come close to meeting state standards for school buildings/properties. Since it has been officially closed, it would have to undergo massive renovations to bring it back on line and in compliance. Plus, the City, not the school system, owns 5th Avenue. (CSD is the only school system in that state that does not own its own schools).

Westchester only holds about 240 kids. It probably won’t come close to meeting the needs of CSD if the annexation goes through.

I think that CSD (and the City) need to look at Hooper and Forrest Hills as potential properties to house students. They are in the proposed annexation area and would provide a neighborhood school for Midway and Forrest Hills and perhaps the Kroger area. My understanding is both of these schools need renovating but not nearly as much as 5th Avenue does. Having Glennwood, Oakhurst, Clairmont, Winnona, Hooper or Forrest Hills and perhaps Westchester as K-5 seems like the most neighborhood friendly option to me.

The problem is that just because they are annexed doesn’t mean that DeKalb County will sell them and it doesn’t mean that Decatur or CSD can afford them.

There is also apparently the possibility that CSD could contract with Dekalb County to house the annexed students and allow them to matriculate into Decatur gradually zone by zone over a decade or so. I read online about another city with a small school system that apparently handled a large annexation this way. I don’t know if it is an option in Georgia. It is certainly an option that could be proposed to CSD to make the whole thing more manageable and predictable. I know that CSD already contracts with Dekalb to teach students with certain types of disabilities so maybe this isn’t a stretch.

CSD is trying to get title to Renfroe so that they can ensure the QZAB funding/bond that Renfroe desperately needs. It is up to the City to decide whether they will title that property over to CSD. I wish that the city would move forward on this as well as writing over title to all CSD schools so that at least they have more control over their destiny than they do now.