Parents of elementary school students in Sandy Springs asked the Fulton County Board of Education not to disrupt their children’s education by closing Spalding Drive Elementary and redistricting students from every school in the city.
The school board held a work session with a public comment period on Tuesday at its North Learning Center in Sandy Springs. Board members heard from seven of the approximately 40 parents who attended the meeting, many wearing Save Spalding Drive Elementary shirts.
Board President Kimberly Dove suggested audience members stand to support a speaker’s view, which led to almost every parent standing for all the approximately half-hour of comments.
Spalding Drive parent Natasha Crocker said that closing the school would have minimal capacity relief. She suggested redistricting a larger school instead would eliminate more unused classroom, but Crocker said parents were prohibited from offering comments on this idea because it did not fit the approved criteria for closure and redistricting.
“You want community feedback. Here it is. Nobody in the community wants this. Everyone is speaking out. You have Republicans, Democrats, state leaders, local leaders, businesses, realtors, families, everyone is saying, don’t do this,” Crocker said.
State Sen. Josh McLaurin and other Democrats have joined with Republicans – including Fulton County Commissioner Bob Ellis and State Rep. Debora Silcox – to support Spalding Drive Elementary as a cornerstone of the community.
“I am fully against the proposed closure and stand in solidarity with the community of SDE,” McLaurin said. “This is a misguided move by FCS.”
Sandy Springs Mayor Rusty Paul and city council members Andy Bauman, Jody Reichel, and Melody Kelley have offered support for Spalding Drive.
“Let me be unequivocal. I want Spaulding Drive Elementary School to stay open,” Kelley told the school board.
Kelley said the school district triggered a redistricting process that may make sense from an operational perspective. However, it lacks a mechanism to have insightful and innovative conversation around alternatives, like smaller school models or updating programs to compete with private schools.
Phillip Draa said he and his wife, Melissa, live in the Spalding Drive attendance zone and have a first grader attending there with two future Spalding Tigers still at home.
“Why are we closing a school that provides disproportionately great results for economically disadvantaged kids and students with disabilities?” Draa asked.
Andreas Garcia said his family’s home is zoned for Woodland Elementary, but his son attends Spalding Drive for its special needs program. He attended special needs pre-K for two years before moving to special needs kindergarten. Now he worries about the effects on his son if Spalding Drive closes.
“There are so many people that have special needs kids that just need a little help so they can go to regular classes and that foundation, that rock star team that we have in Spalding Elementary, is very crucial to that success,” Garcia said.
High Point Elementary parents joined in the call to stop the closure as the school district’s initial redistricting plans would affect students at the other six elementary schools in Sandy Springs.
Dr. Dhaval Desai said a study of the initial redistricting map proposals shows FCS would send 100 to 150 students from High Point Elementary to other schools.
“High Point has a very strong culture,” Desai said. “And let me emphasize that, I cannot emphasize that enough from our PTO school Governance Council, school club leadership, Girl Scouts, extracurriculars, the list goes on and on. And that culture was not built overnight.”
Kate Wright said she and her husband have three children attending High Point Elementary School, where she and her brothers attended school growing up. She’s been the PTO president and served in other volunteer positions.
“We’ve lived a lot of life, served a great many hours in its halls and on its grounds, and established deep roots at High Point,” Wright said.
Wright said she remembered the effects of redistricting from her experiences in the third grade. She returned for a new school year to realize many of her classmates had been reassigned to Heards Ferry Elementary.
“I still remember how this divided our community, removing both the large portion of the volunteer force as well as financial contributions,” she said.
High Point has been fighting to regain that stability ever since, she said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
