From CSD’s Communication Director Bruce Roaden…

The City Schools of Decatur Board of Education will have a work session Tuesday, October 12 at 5:30 PM to discuss the redrawing of its Kindergarten-3rd grade school attendance zones with the opening of Glennwood as a K-3 school for the 2011-12 school year.

Georgia State University and a CSD committee have been working together to develop a number of options (along with the data and rationale for each) for the board’s consideration. Public input sessions will be announced soon so that citizens may have the opportunity to offer input about these options with the board. Public input sessions will occur before the board votes on the attendance zone options.

I’ve been told that all the school zone reconfiguration options will be available to the general public on this day.

CSD Mom’s blog quotes a message posted on the CSDparents Yahoo Group site from Don Calder that reports the CSD Board voted unanimously in favor of Option 13 last night regarding reconfiguration options.  No real surprise there.

According to the note, Edwards also addressed concerns about leaving Westchester vacant for the time being, explaining that it could be used as a buffer against “extraordinary enrollment increases” (read: annexation).

Also, here are some numbers that were thrown around…

The cost of renovating Fifth Ave is expected to be $8 million. The impact on the operating budget (as of 2013) should be approx $500 to $700K, which may require a millage increase of approx 0.5 to 1.0 mil. Both Dr. Edwards and CSD’s finance rep, Theresa Link, stressed that these are worst-case scenarios, however, and difficult to project.

There sure are a lot of strong opinions out there about CSD’s reconfiguration! But dispatches from last Tuesday’s Reconfiguration Informational and Listening Sessions reported poor attendance.

Maybe you were at the Grange. Maybe you forgot. Luckily you have another chance!

This Tuesday, March 25th, CSD will hold another session starting at 6:30p in Renfroe’s cafeteria.

Come one, come all! And get your fill of Options 1-13!

If you need to catch yourself up to speed on the issues, the Interim Report is very useful.

If your interested in staying up to date on CSD’s reconfiguration efforts, there are two online resources I would recommend.

The first is Decatur edTV’s latest video about next steps in the reconfiguration process.  The 10-minute report recaps the last Board of Ed meeting – where tons of parents turned out thanks to a poorly worded agenda item – and goes thru next steps. The other place to find next steps is CSD’s official “board-approved” reconfiguration next steps calendar. Coincidentally, the Reconfiguration Cmte meets this Tuesday and Wednesday where they will reexamine option costs.

I would also recommend checking out the Reconfiguration Committee’s Interim Report on this whole issue.  Its 14 pages long and gives a good look inside the collective head of that committee: where they’re coming from, what’s they’re worried about, etc…

After looking through both these resources myself, I have a recommendation. Read the rest of this entry »

Judd Owen writes in to let us know that if we’re reading the CSD Board of Ed agenda correctly, they have pushed up their vote to approve the recommended reconfiguration plan of the school system from March to January 13th.

If you’re new to the discussion, the plan to accomidate more students is to use portables at the elementary schools until 4th/5th grades can be moved to a new Renfroe addition and make Glennwood a K-3.  If the city were to approve annexation, Westchester would also become a K-3.

Originally, the schedule looked like this…

a. Superintendent presents multiple options to Board of Education
for February 10, 2009 meeting
b. Board of Education conducts informational sessions and public
hearings (if needed) end of February
c. Board of Education votes on action item March 10, 2009

But Judd points out that a “move approval of reconfiguration plan” is the second action item on the School Board’s January 13th meeting agenda.  The item is accompanied by a letter from the superintendent encouraging the board to accept the committee’s recommendation.  The financial impact is estimated at $25,000 for each portable and $3 million for the Renfroe “renovations to add 4/5″.

So I assume that this means that the Board of Ed vote has been pushed up two months to January 13th?  Right? Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.