This sounds awesome.

From the latest Decatur edTV newletter…

Decatur, GA Mayor Bill Floyd tops a growing list of local celebrity contestants who will face a team of Glennwood Academy 5th graders in the Decatur ED TV presentation of “r YOU Smarter Than a Glennwood 5th Grader?”  The fun kicks off at 7pm on Wednesday, February 9, 2011 at the Decatur High School Performing Arts Center.  Your ticket will help the current 5th grade class to give a Legacy Gift to the new 4/5 Academy at Fifth Avenue set to open in August 2011.  Adult admission: $10 Students over 14: $5.

Tickets can be purchased online HERE.

Kids been clamoring for both a moon jump AND a haunted house?

From Decatur Active Living’s Cheryl Burnette…

Decatur Active Living is teaming with City Schools of Decatur and Safe Routes to School again this year to provide bicycle safety training for our 4th graders at Glennwood Academy. We are looking for volunteers to assist with this training which will be held at Glennwood. This is a great opportunity to make sure our children learn to ride bikes safely.

Dates for the training are September 21 & 22, and then on September 27, 27 & 29th. The morning shift is from 8 am until 10:45am and afternoon 11am until 2:15pm.

Please select the date and times you would like to volunteer and return to Cheryl Burnette by September 10th. This is a great way to get out in the community and help our youth with becoming active and safe commuters, as well as to have some fun!

Specific dates and times of when volunteers are needed after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

With final approval of the plans for Decatur’s new 5th Avenue 4/5 Academy going before the city commission tonight, it will soon be time to tackle another key component of adding another school to the K-5, red-bricky mix: reconfiguration of the school “attendance zones.”

When will this happen and how will this work?  Well, as some of you more devout CSDers may have noticed, Superintendent Phyllis Edwards referenced the process in her recent letter regarding pre-K placement at Clairemont Elementary…

Over the summer, we will be working with Georgia State University to develop three options for redrawing the zoning lines.  This is in preparation for presenting options to the community, the SLTs, and the School Board.  I hope to have plans available in the fall [2010] so a decision can be made early in the year and families will know which school their child is zoned for in the 2011-2012 school year and beyond.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

In deciding to build a 4/5 Academy at 5th Avenue, one of the key concerns stated by the Reconfiguration Committee and the School Board was maintaining racial diversity within the school system.  A key component of the 2003 reconfiguration was extending Oakhurst Elementary’s attendance zone up into northwest Decatur to diversify the student population.  Turning Glennwood Elementary into a K-3 again creates a “school-heavy” east side of Decatur, with Oakhurst Elementary the only K-3 west of the unofficial Clairemont/McDonough split.

Assuming the preference that most kids go to the school closest to their respective homes, northwest Decatur again becomes the wild-card.

And before anyone yells “Free Westchester!”, note that the Superintendent’s letter also relays that she will be talking with the School Board about starting a community discussion regarding whether and how to reopen the Scott Boulevard school.

While helping my wife’s grandparents scan some items for a scrapbook, I found a small piece of Decatur history.

It’s a newspaper photo of the Glennwood school’s first grade orchestra, in 1924.

Click to enlarge.

(Post by Andisheh Nouraee)