Reconfiguration Committee Votes Overwhelmingly for Option 13
Decatur Metro | April 23, 2009CSD Mom’s Reconfiguration Blog tips us off to the fact that the CSD Reconfiguration Committee has recommended Option #13 (renovate 5th Avenue into 4/5 academy) to the school board.
Sure enough, the recommendation is now up on the CSD website (pdf) and it looks like #13 won in a landslide.
As the letter states, after Option 13, both the Renfroe addition and the Westchester renovation were the second choice, while further expanding Glennwood to accomidate the growing 4/5 academy ranked third.
As previously stated, Option 13 renovates 5th Avenue Elementary to house the city’s 4/5 academy and returns Glennwood to a K-3. Keeping IB and racial diversity were the key concerns leading to the decision, along with maintaining current grade configurations and building a “state-of-the-art facility.” The stated main concerns with a 5th Ave renovation have been the cost (around $10 million) and the non-central location.
The Board of Ed meets next month to vote on the committee’s recommendation.
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Yeah! I live on 3rd Avenue between East Lake and Oakview, so now my children will be able to walk to school K-5!
I think it’s a good idea anyway, but I have selfish reasons to support this option.
We are a good ways from 5th Ave… but no further than we were from GW – so it really is a wash either way for us. I just hope that 1350 kids at Renfroe is off the table. We shall see.
So for those of us on Ponce Court, will our kids go to 5th Ave.?
Bear in mind that this is just a recommendation. It was (I think) the single most expensive option on the table and the superintendent and board may have other priorities for a very tight budget.
Many thanks to that committee. They put in a lot of hard work on a very difficult and complex assignment.
I just hope they don’t pick the Renfroe addition.
May I just remind everyone that racial diversity should not be a factor in making this decision. It is a legal imperative that we reach a certain level of racial diversity in each school, so this factor will be met and prioritized no matter what.
As a parent safe routes to school volunteer for Clairemont I have concerns about the location of 5th Avenue. Glennwood Estates, Great Lakes, Chelsea Heights, and Westchester to name a few neighborhoods will have some challenges. That said I am a huge fan of the academy concept and think it is a worthwhile sacrifice if the altenative is going back to neighborhood schools. Moreover, the neighborhoods in S. Decatur have had the challenge of coming to Glennwood the past 4 years. I do think this puts more of an onus on the City to follow through on their transportation plan on gateway intersections that move traffic between North and South Decatur (McDounough, Candler) and have a safe alterternative for walkers and bikers (like myself) either with a tunnel or complete streets at those intersections and corridors.
Kudos to the committee members for all their hard work on this difficult issue. I’m so happy to hear this was the first option, as I believe it’s the best choice. Hopefully, the board will agree and find the funds.
treesrock: As one of the families who live right by 5th Avenue Elementary and have had to trek 3+ miles to Glennwood for three years, I appreciate your recognition of our challenges. I agree that more work needs to be done to improve the safety of the North/South crossing for our walkers and bikers, no matter where the 4/5 Academy ends up.
Sorry, Lump, but policies and decisions for the entire system should not be made based on 10 families that live on Ponce Ct. ANd if you think that putting the school at 5th Avenue is a hardship on the north side of town – well, then welcome to the world that South Decatur has been living for, oh, the past 90 years or so.
Treesrock, there is a big load of kids now who live near 5th avenue and have a bike train every morning and afternoon to GW. It has worked very well for a couple of years now and I imagine that the same thing could be developed from Glenwood Estates going south – using the same route. It just takes a couple of parents committed to getting some exercise in the morning.
Chelsea Heights and Westchester can’t bike to GW as it is, so changing to 5th Avenue won’t change that.
My guess is that we will need Westchester for a K-3 if Decatur annexes so it would be better to reserve it for that purpose. It would serve it’s former neighborhoods plus the northwestern portions of annexation areas. 5th Avenue is nowhere near any of the annexed areas so it makes more sense to use it for a district-wide school rather than a neighborhood school.
I think that, for the reasons given above, 5th. Ave. vs. Glennwood is pretty much a wash when it comes to overall ease of access, with some people (like me) winning while others lose. But folks living near Glennwood do get a more easily accessible K-3 school (instead of a longer trip to Winnona or Clairemont). And 5th Ave. is better for handling an increased population 4-5 than is Glennwood.
Hey, I just rode to 5th Avenue from my neighborhood in N. Decatur. It is very doable, especially with older kids (4th and 5th graders). If it works out I look forward to carrying on the tradition of a bike train. The fifth Avenue school also looks like a great piece of property with more land than Glennwood. Great neighborhood too, my vote is in for 5th Avenue and I hope it works out!
So everyone is cool with the $10 million price tag? What if it requires raising the millage rate to pay it back?
Yum…millage…
DM…. Well, I don’t know of an option that won’t require a $10 million price tag or a huge increase in operating costs. The kids have to go somewhere. K-4/5-8 is the only option that doesn’t involve a substantial increase in expenses of some type, and that solution will only work for a little while and won’t accommodate any annexation. My kids will have been through two reconfigurations in 4 years. I’d rather not have them go through yet another a couple of years from now.
Our K-5 population has increased by 30% since 2004, if you look a the DOE numbers. We are a victim of our own success – the kids have to go somewhere. This success also drives property values and has helped shield them a good bit from a heck of a nasty recession…… so there is an upside.
Hindsight is 20/20, and someone with a crystal ball probably never would have approved the IB/EL pedagogy split or the current school configuration if they had known what was to come. However I think the school board gave it their best estimate with the (woefully inaccurate) demographic data that their consultants gave them. Also, there was apparently no thought given to the fact that Oakhurst would experience a BIG baby boom as a result of the reconfiguration. We have to work within some of the parameters created from this data/lack of data. IMO, the consultants have a lot of “splanin'” to do.
What Mr FixIt said.
But to expand a bit more–I believe that in the current economic climate, capital expenses up-front funded by bonds are a better idea than ongoing personnel and other costs, all else being equal. (Obviously, the “all else being equal is a huge caveat.) Interest rates are low right now, especially if Decatur still has a good bond rating, and I’d guess that construction costs should be relatively low right now too, as there is a lot of underutilized construction capacity.
OK. I’ll be the bad guy. 9 million dollars is fiscally irresponsible. Then, add to that interest on borrowing plus the yearly cost of maintaining another building (heating, cooling, electricity, plumbing, upkeep) when you are already paying all of that same money to maintain an entire elementary school (Westchester) that’s not being used for children. The options to pay for this are? 1) increase student enrollment 2) increase taxes 3) increase property values or 4) spend less on teachers, materials, supplies and equipment for the classroom.
Tuition students
Foodie, I get your other options but can you clarify how increasing student enrollments helps pay for expansion? The whole debate on annexation centers on the fact that additional children do not pay their own full cost of public education.
While rebuilding 5th Avenue was the most expensive in terms of construction costs… it was the 5th most expensive in terms of impact on the annual budget.
In my humble opinion, Option #13 represents a good consensus and compromise between the desires of parents, teachers, and administrators and between best educational practices and financial constraints.
DecaturMetro: On millage, if you check the Tax Payer Bill of Rights on the CSD website, you’ll see on page 14 that even without Reconfiguration, CSD is preparing to raise the millage rate to 21.8 in 2010 and 22.65 in 2011.
Responding to Foodie’s comments on paid tuition students… Paid tuition students at the middle and high schools would indeed be a great way to fill up unused space. But only if we can charge a profitable rate. Unfortunately, there are state laws which limit what we can charge for tuition, and which we apparently are not exempted from even though we are a Charter System. For the time being, paid tuition students are still a good source of revenue at the middle and high schools where we we have extra capacity. But it isn’t a silver bullet.
The fiscal problems facing CSD remain significant. At least until SPLOST re-opens in a couple years, implementing reconfiguration is going to going to be another hit on the budget. The annual impact on the budget for putting the 4-5 Academy at the following locations is estimated to be:
o #13: 5th Avenue = $1.78 million
o #9: Renfroe = $1.41 million ($1.53 w/ separate principal)
o #12: Glennwood = $0.42 million (operates one less K-3 school)
o #10: Westchester = $1.85 million
At heart, Option #13 is a 4x K-3, 4-5, 6-8 model which preserves the 4-5 Academy as a separate entity. If financial concerns are paramount, then there are 2 ways to improve Option #13:
1) avoid the necessity of operating an additional facility ($500K/y)
2) reduce construction costs by building the 4/5 as an addition to one of the other primary grade facilities
Both of which effectively imply a 3x K-3, 4-5, 6-8 model:
1) least expensive option overall
2) most efficient from operational costs perspective
3) preserves 4-5 Academy as separate entity
4) no redistricting
5) keeps facilities, curricula, and staff intact
6) can be modified to keep classroom counts at K-3’s equal
7) variations which put 4-5 at OA, WP, or CL provide same benefits with exception of redistricting
8) variations which put 4-5 at 5A, WE, or GL provide same benefits with exception that one current K-3 facility would need to close
I fully endorse the reconfiguration committee’s recommendation for Option #13. However, if the Board believes #13 to be too expensive, I hope that they will consider one of these variations which keep 4-5 as a separate entity.
cheers,
Garrett
Garrett, I think I speak for everyone when I say we really appreciate your smart and thoughtful analysis on this issue. Your grasp of all this data is extraordinary.
Thanks for the follow up. I agree that #13 is probably the best option if the board can work around the $ issue.