Dunwoody Academy for 4th & 5th grade and No Redistricting. Crier Article

By Cathy Cobbs for The Crier, April 22, 08

Citing the inability to end overcrowding with a proposed redistricting of Dunwoody area elementary schools, DeKalb County School Superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis has put forth a completely new plan - to create a fourth and fifth grade academy in a facility originally slated for a new elementary school. The new plan calls for fourth and fifth grade students from Vanderlyn, Chesnut and Austin elementaries to attend the Womack Road facility, which is slated to open for the 2009-10 school year. Kingsley and Hightower, which are underpopulated facilities, will remain K-5 facilities.

The previously redrawn attendance lines, revealed last year, will be thrown out if this plan takes affect, Lewis said.

“What we tried to do was make the right recommendation that was best for the children,” Lewis told a crowd of about 400 people at an evening meeting at Peachtree Charter Middle School. “This plan provides maximum relief to overcrowded schools, balances enrollment across the area, leaves the attendance lines unchanged, keeps neighborhoods together and provides for a smooth transition for all students.”

The plan would reduce the student population at Austin, which now has 760 students and is predicted to reach 869 in 2009, to 608, according to school officials, and allow for the removal of all but three or four of its 14 portable classrooms on the school grounds. Vanderlyn’s student count would shrink from a projected 990 to 695 and see the removal of 23 of its 27 portable classrooms. Chesnut’s projected population of 585 would be reduced to 385 with the change.

Austin would be operating at 111 percent of its capacity, Vanderlyn at 116 percent and Chesnut at 65 percent after the transfer of the students to the new academy. Lewis said the county forecasts enrollment in the area schools to remain steady through 2012 and decrease through 2018.

Parents speaking at the meeting were supportive of the plan, for the most part.

“I’m pleased to see this proposal,” said Lynn Deutsch. “Is it the perfect solution? No. But many families in this area have made the decision to send their children to Kittredge (Magnet School) and have split up their families.”

Tammy Anderson, an Austin parent, said she was concerned about the traffic conditions on Womack Road after the new school opens, and questioned whether the explosive growth of multi-family housing was considered before launching the new plan.

School officials said they had considered the recent influx of multi-family construction in the area before devising the new academy solution, and in fact, didn’t consider the recent downturn in the economy in their projections.

Other parents questioned why Kingsley and Hightower students were not included in the academy. (See comments to my previous post.)

“Hightower and Kingsley are already small schools with open seats,” Lewis said. “If we moved fourth and fifth graders from Kingsley, we would certainly be looking at closing that school down.”

In the plan’s other details:

Lewis said the community would have a voice in the selection of the new academy’s principal, which he hopes to announce before the end of this academic school year.

Start and end times for the new school will be staggered with the elementary, middle and high schools in order to accommodate buses and private transportation, although school officials didn’t have specific details about those times yet.

Sidewalks will be installed on Womack Road in front of the school in order to better accommodate bike riders and walkers.

The county will incorporate “green” building concepts when building the 107,000-square foot facility, including bike racks, special parking for low emission and fuel-efficient vehicles, low-flow plumbing and energy-efficient lighting and lamps.

Nix-Fowler Construction has been selected to build the school and construction documents are 95 percent complete, according to school officials. The plans are now being reviewed by DeKalb County, with groundbreaking expected during the summer.

A committee continues to discuss uses for the former Chamblee Middle School site on Chamblee Dunwoody Road, but no recommendation has yet been made for its use.