DeKalb County to Close 4 Elementary Schools
Decatur Metro | February 19, 2010On the county government side, Burrell Ellis and company are looking for an extra $20 million to cut from DeKalb County’s budget after someone uncovered an un-calculated 6.7% decline in property values.
On the schools side of the equation, things have gotten even uglier. From the AJC…
Next week, school officials will identify the four elementary schools that will close at the end of the school year in May. They plan to close another eight to 10 schools in May 2011.
The schools will be selected out of the 29 schools with enrollments of less than 300 students. District officials are eyeing schools in south DeKalb now that Dunwoody has become the fastest-growing area of the county, Lewis said.
I understand and respect the arguments of those that want as little to do with county government as possible, but man, sometimes I just feel really bad for South DeKalb.
From Mark Twain:
Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain at one end you lose at the other. It’s like feeding a dog on his own tail. It won’t fatten the dog.
– Speech 11/23/1900
In the first place God made idiots. This was for practice. Then He made school boards.
– Following the Equator, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar
Mark Twain’s remark is very wise and very accurate. Healthy, well-educated citizens are the BASE of our society.
If you look at it from the politicians’ point of view, the base of our society is under-educated citizens that share the delusion that they even make a difference.
Bravo for telling it like it is. We are all affected by neglecting the education of our citizens.
I hate to be a downer, but when the people who manage the financial affairs of our schools can afford to send their kids to costly private schools, they tend to not care so much.
I agree with this. Why are some administrator educator salaries so high? Are they really that more educated, trained, experienced, and productive than some of the really great teachers who are earning 1/3 the salary? Maybe the very top administrators have CEO-like responsibilities but not most of them. Look at the parking lot of school system Central Offices at 5 PM–not too many cars left! Ask the parents and teachers which is more needed–one more top salary administrator or five paraprofessionals.
If a highly paid public school administrator is sending their children to private school and it’s not because the children have an educational disabilities, I’ve lost faith in that administrator. They don’t walk the walk. They should go find a highly paid administrator position in the private school sector.
Gibbs, does the administrator in DeKalb send his kids to private school? That would be interesting to know.
I wonder why DeKalb can do decent jobs in the Dunwoody part of DeKalb and the Fernbank & Shamrock parts but not Avondale. I wonder if that has to do with the fact that many Avondale parents of means who might have the time and resources to devote to fixing the schools have chosen to pay tuition in Decatur, Friends and Waldorf and other places rather than improve the school.
I have heard many comments to that effect through three separate friends who have either taught at Avondale or have done special ed services there. Obviously, that’s not the only reason, and obviously that is not something I have anything beyond a few teacher’s opinions to support, but I still have it in the back of my mind every time I hear parents in Avondale upset or making comments about how unfair it is that only one mile away lies an academic oasis they cannot access (that has been said here but also to me directly by a friend with two kids in Avondale Estates).
Nellie — I hate to be overly simplistic, but folks in Avondale can access Decatur schools the same way we do: by making the choice and investment to live in Decatur instead of Avondale.
As for turning their school around, I wish them the best but in my experience schools only turn around when two things align — grass roots community involvement coupled with top-down responsiveness and related policy. AE is getting a solid base at the community level, but I’m skeptical they’ll ever get what they need at the District level. Isn’t that what their charter school initiative is all about?
To me, Decatur’s greatest strength is its manageable size. Not everyone is thrilled by every decision but, at the end of the day, they’re accessible and accountable. Try getting ideas on the table in DeKalb County. Feh.
At Scott: moving from Avondale to Decatur for the CSD is exactly what my wife and I did. The schools our kids would have gone to were frightening–not sure how they are now, but the CSD works for us.
At Nell: I don’t know where county administrators send their children, I have to assume that it is not to the schools they control, if they did then it seems mighty odd they would hamstring their own kids’ education.
“sometimes I just feel really bad for South DeKalb.”
As long as it’s South Dekalb. Thank God it’s not North Dekalb. I would feel just terrible then.
@Davo – I hope you are just being facetious….
I think he might be ragging on me, but it’s a bit too cryptic for me to respond.
So what happens with the people who live in those areas? A partial reinstatement of the M to M program?
They can drive their darling ankle biters to school or gasp/horror put them on the bus.
It’s not like school is being cancelled south of Memorial Drive.
Interesting that the Dunwoody schools are growing. I remember a similar debate a few years back when DeKalb chose to close Nancy Creek Elementary near Dunwoody (it’s now Kittredge Magnet School). Parents were literally begging them not to close it because demographic trends were already predicting the future enrollment growth in that area. Guess they were right.
They aren’t really Dunwoody’s schools, are they? Isn’t the rest of the county still paying for those schools even though the city took the mall?
DeKalb County still has the schools and Dunwoody residents pay school taxes. DeKalb also provides fire but not police.
This seems to be a common problem among school systems–making local area enrollment projections. They don’t pay attention when enrollment starts to decline, then end up with empty schools, so overreact, don’t pay attention when people with two year olds beg them to count real children vs. using outdated macro methods for projecting enrollment like hospital births, then end up with crowded schools and needing to find space! Someone might have a good business opportunity if they could give school systems better and more immediate small area enrollment projections.
But isn’t the problem here that the county has no money and not empty schools?
I was actually referring to the comment about the Nancy Creek Elementary closing/ now needing more schools in Dunwoody. Closing schools based on faulty enrollment projections is different from closing schools based on not enough money.
I believe they said the schools that would be closed would be the ones with low enrollment.
And those students would likely be sent to other schools, so it’s not like those students would be left without a school.
So, faced with budget shortfalls and under-utilized schools, closing a few of them makes sense.
They’re also planning to get rid of some of mid-level administrators, which isn’t a bad idea.
Get rid of Philandria Guillory. She got her job because her mom was on the school board, she makes an obscene amount of money in public relations and she’s terrible at it. Her salary could pay for two or three paraprofessionals, or a teacher or two.
This may be off-topic but what is the breakdown on operating costs for an average elementary school?
I always hear how bus and food operations are the big items with teacher’s salaries being a relatively minor sector. (I could be totally wrong on that)
Seems to me it’d be better to keep well paid teachers and materials on hand and let parents provide food and transportation. I had to walk to school (yes, even elementary school) and if I didn’t bring my lunch, I didn’t eat. There was a lesson in that too.
Re food: Most CSD students either pay for their lunches or bring their own. Maybe those “hot lunches” are subsidized? If so, I could support having parents with the means paying full price. But as someone who eats at school with a child occasionally, these aren’t luxury lunches! School lunches are about as appetizing and fancy as they ever were. I can’t imagine that the fair market value of these lunches is much higher than what is currently charged.
For kids from families that can’t afford lunch and breakfasts, it’s worth the investment to provide decent nutrition. It’s been long-proven that hungry kids don’t learn or test well or sit nicely in class so the other kids can learn. So no breakfast means poor CRCT scores means no AYP means less funding in the long run…..
Re school buses: I’m always shocked at the cost. Seems like there ought to be a better way. Again, we’ve got to provide for the kids whose parents can’t afford to pay someone to walk them to school when the parents leave at 6 AM to start the first of their two jobs they need to just make ends meet. We don’t want kindergartners wandering off their mile long trek to school from home. And it probably won’t work to make bus transportation only available to low income families because, while many such families are concentrated in the DHA homes, the rest are going to be scattered all over Decatur. (And given recent job losses and furloughs, you’d be surprised at some of the areas that have financially-struggling families now). And buses can be a lifesaver for all working parents of any income level because they assure that a child gets from one safe destination to the next while parents are at work. Seems like all the great minds of Decatur ought to be able to come up with a creative situation that doesn’t annoy CSD too much.