OK, I’m a little behind the 8-ball on bringing up this news, but there’s probably still a bit of interest in discussing it.  On Monday, the AJC reported…

Georgia’s third largest school district, DeKalb County, was placed on probation Monday after a six-month-investigation into scores of complaints of mismanagement.

n a scathing report, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accuses DeKalb officials of engaging in bickering and nepotism while letting district finances wither. Mark Elgart, president and chief executive officer of SACS parent company AdvancED, also said the district had allowed academic achievement to slip.

The decision by the accrediting agency could have wide-ranging effects on the local economy, observers say, from discouraging businesses from relocating to DeKalb to depressing housing values, which already have dropped precipitously.

Yesterday, the AJC reported the reactions of residents and political-types to the threat of losing accreditation.  Some DeKalb cities just want out.

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In light of the planned school closings in DeKalb, the AJC’s Bill Torpy reflects this morning on how the 2004 closure of Forrest Hills Elementary affected its surrounding community.

Formerly active residents and many young parents have moved away. Community gatherings have grown smaller. The recession makes the impact on property values hard to determine, but many residents believe they’ve been damaged. And the sense of neighborhood renewal and momentum that the effort to better its school fostered has diminished.

DeKalb County schools Superintendent Crawford Lewis recently announced at a school board meeting that he will make his position known to the public by the end of the month on whether to sell 31 acres of land at the intersection of Briarcliff and North Druid to the Sembler company. Sembler wants to purchase the land and use it in conjunction with 70 other acres already purchased to create an 100-acre “mini-city” bigger than its current driving nightmare at Edgewood.

The school board has been mulling the issue for over a year. And even after they finish letting this issue percolate, they still have to decide whether to allow TAD money to be taken from school taxes.

The next two school board meetings occur on Jan. 14th and 18th.

No word on whether the distraction of this schools/Sembler development extravaganza has improved DeKalb student test scores.

In the words of Helen Lovejoy, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”