MM: Superintendent Against Redistricting, Renting a School, and Planning for T-Day
Decatur Metro | November 11, 2015 | 10:35 am
- Decatur superintendent against re-districting [AJC]
- Decatur School Board puts parameters on renting school from Atlanta [Decaturish]
- Decatur City Hall open today [Decatur Tax Blog]
- Center for Puppetry Arts Opening New Museum this weekend [Atlanta Intown]
- Georgia Sees Major Rise In Tuition Since 2010 [WABE]
- How to plan and cook Thanksgiving [NYT]
Photo courtesy of the Cummings Family
He sure is against a lot of things!
He should make EL a Third Grade Academy. Keep the grades together, prepare for 4/5, relieve enrollment numbers at all K-3 (K-2’s under this suggestion) No redistricting required.
Making is only a new kid school, makes new students feel slighted, isolated, works against what has made us successful
I agree that creating a school only for students new to the system would be an isolating experience. A self-selecting magnet is a much better idea. Arts-based, Spanish immersion, outdoor-program oriented.
I think this is a great idea
All we need is five more school buildings and we could have one grade level per school!
A temporary 3rd grade academy
I like the idea of having a Decatur magnet school. For instance, I’d consider sending my kids across town if they could attend a Spanish immersion school.
If you need a guide on how to plan and cook for Thanksgiving, you should not be cooking for Thanksgiving. And especially not MY Thanksgiving.
O, Master Chef, take pity on those poor inept souls who don’t have your God-given talent and ability to prepare the perfect Thanksgiving dinner.
Oh, go stuff yourself. I’m just saying that Thanksgiving is not the day for amateur cooks to be winging it. Someone who’s not abreast of what it takes to prepare this meal doesn’t need to be ruining it for everyone else. And if you disagree, you can shut your pumpkin piehole, thank you very much!
I do disagree, but won’t be bullied into shutting my pumpkin piehole, as you so elegantly put it.
So amateur cooks shouldn’t even take a shot at it? Even for a small family dinner? Using a guide such as that provided by the NYT seems like it would be helpful. Gotta start somewhere.
I believe you meant “eloquently”. And I also believe that you might need a dose of humor in your gravy or something today. But then again, maybe I’m just not punny anymore…
Maybe he’s fried.
And maybe J_T’s not as eloquently amusing as he thinks he is.
Perhaps not, but I’m still thoroughly amused by this thread and am gobbling it up. Of all the crazy things I’ve ever said, THIS is the one that gets your goose? LOL
Yes, because you aren’t normally so patronizing (but you’re usually pretty funny).
Here’s an example from my perspective. If the article had been about how to replace your brake pads (an easy thing for me, but not for others) and I had said “If you need a guide on how to replace your brake pads, you should not be replacing your brake pads,” non-mechanical people would have bristled.
I’m the cook in the family, and have done Thanksgiving dinner for many years. But it’s still a struggle for me because I’m frankly not that good at it. So I took your comment in a negative light.
Anyway, it’s all good. And I will still read and enjoy your (usually) funny/punny comments.
Gotta go with 7.62 here. J_T’s comment came off as a little douchey. But I ain’t mad at him – we all misfire on occasion.
looks like the walmart opening has soured a few moods around here today.
The dude is smart. He doesn’t want to alienate a large portion of parents on his first day by telling them they will once again be re-districted. But, give it a couple of months and he will be saying that re-districting is the lesser of all evils, and he will reluctantly go along with it. Sorry, but sending kids who live a mile or so from the school makes a lot more sense than sending kids from NE corner of the city. That would be about a half hour trip during morning rush hour. And the “new kids only” idea is ridiculous (unless we no longer want our schools to be community schools).
Or maybe a “new kids only” school would discourage newcomers. Sure – you can move here and enjoy our wonderful school district, but first you have to survive a year at east lake. It could be like boot camp.
Now that you are here, others need not apply?
Should we just go ahead and make the school mascot “lepers”? East Lake Lepers has a nice ring to it!
The Dude abides.
Re-districting is coming. Maybe not today, but not too far in the future, either. The number of students and the addition of new school buildings and the growth of new housing make it almost inevitable. It poses great challenges, but great opportunities. So, strap on your patience and respect — and clear your evening calendars for all of the community group gropes we will endure, er, enjoy. We get to live in interesting times.
So thankful that our youngest will be at Renfroe next year – no more concerns about re-districting! BTW she got all of the J_T’s Tday puns (sounds like someone needs to recheck their ammo).
I got them also. I may be humorless today, but I’m not completely dumb.
It seems to me minimizing operating costs (especially transportation) should be a primary consideration in this decision. As has been stated on here many times, the kids will be fine. The adult’s bank accounts not so much if we aren’t careful.
IF we rent the school, some decisions would have to be made based on the facilities themselves and what costs would be incurred by having different grades there. But one idea would be to house the ECLC there, along with some kindergarten classes (thus not adding a transition for those students, just delaying it; also alleviating some K stress at each of the existing K-3’s). Then we could work on making our ECLC back into a K-3 or K-5 or whatever. The Talley Street property should ultimately either be for ECLC or another 4-5 or 4-6 or something that doesn’t add another transition for students. More transitions are correlated with lower academic progress. This solution keeps everybody in their current zoning (instead of being re-zoned at least twice for lease and release of this school) and doesn’t change transportation needs.
It will be interesting to watch how this unfolds….
I hope all those who have different ideas about the East Lake situation take some time to talk to your School Board members.
Yes, and talk to your SLTs (school leadership teams) to make sure that they are getting involved. This is a perfect test of whether the new Superintendent is going to engage SLTs in major decisions that affect the families in their schools. Or is a narrow scope going to be invoked for the role of SLTs, as Dr. Van Soelen used to do, claiming that issues were “system-wide” and thus not appropriate for SLTs? (And of course, anything can be described as system-wide depending on how you want to slice and dice issues.) Even system-wide issues should be addressed by the System Charter Leadership Team which has a representative and principal from each SLT. Unfortunately, the SCLT doesn’t seem to have met since February of 2014 according to eBoard even though the SLT Manual says that it should meet 2 to 4 times yearly.
If they are planning another k-3 they should go ahead, redistrict based on location of that school (likely college heights), send those kids and staff to there temp housing while new properties are being built and let them form and remain a community. Same thing if they are planning a new 4/5. I think it would be the best use of a temp space.
BRILLIANT G !
To G, I don’t think it is going to be that simple I’m afraid. As far as I can work out the long term plan is to reopen college heights AND build a new elementary school of some kind at Talley St. I guess they could decide who is going to go to the new Talley St elementary and send all those students to East Lake Elementary (and then hope that the future College Heights kids won’t be too much of a burden on Oakhurst/Winnona for another year or so). However, it seemed that there might be a thought that there could be no redistricting for the new school at Talley St, that the Talley St school could be a magnet or something a bit unusual (so then it would make sense to make the East Lake Elementary building be a magnet or something unusual in the mean time while the Talley St school gets built).