So in advance of the second round of "demographic study" presentations, APS' temp superintendent laid out a tantalizing set of "guiding principles" he intends to use in translating the "study" into a recommendation for the APS Board.
They read:
Ranking of Priorities
Priority One
• Propose boundaries that will be functional for 10 years based on forecasted enrollment.
• Attempt to assign students to schools located closest to their homes. Allow K-8 students to walk where possible. The proximity of ES’s to MS’s should be maximized.
• Attempt to maximize/keep the school feeder concept intact. No more split feeders. Clusters only.
• When evaluating consolidation/closure scenarios and determining which facilities should be retained vs. closed, consideration should be given to minimizing disruption to established educational programming (retain existing IB programs, magnet schools, etc.)
• Ensure student safety and transportation efficiency by using major highway corridors and geographic features as zone boundaries. Give weight to traffic patterns, energy efficiency, etc. Consider time spent on buses.
• Assume NAHS capacity of 2400.
• Minimize impacts on areas that have been redistricted within the last three years.
• Recommend school consolidation/closures in areas where forecasted enrollment does not support multiple schools.
• Attempt to avoid splitting neighborhoods. (Neighborhood boundaries are determined by generally accepted definitions used by the City of Atlanta).
Priority Two
• Favor the retention of newer/larger facilities which have benefitted from recent capital investment in expansion or renovation.
• Retain more accessible, less congested school sites which have better transportation access and can accommodate future long-term expansion beyond the forecast period of this study.
• When consolidating, to the extent possible, avoid closing a high performing school to send children to a lower performing school.
• Don’t eliminate an IB school within an IB cluster.
• Retain ES splitting (K-3, 4-5) as a planning tool.
• Consider SPLOST funded school expansions as a planning tool.
• Be careful in moving students from high performing ES’s to low performing MS’s.
• Balance current utilization of retained buildings to 80% to 90% of capacity.
• In at least one model, minimize the number of transfers across the board.
Priority Three
• Before closing a school, consider the robustness of its partner support.
• No K-8 schools planning until Board reviews/resolves policy issues.
• Eliminate the 9th Grade Academy as a stand alone facility.
I don't know if he just gives up at the end where he moves from principles to policy statements ("No K-8 schools ....", "Eliminate the 9th Grade Academy ..."), but some of this makes sense while some of it seems like a riddle he's asking us to figure out. Trying to apply these priorities to BPA/Whitefooord/Toomer/East Lake / Coan / Jackson seems to require some kind of algorithm to process through the conflicting "priorities".
Obviously these things will need to be applied to whatever this next round of "study" produces next week.
Thoughts?
Interesting, and you're right - There are some inherent conflicts in there. In all, it looks like a broad enough menu that they can buttress almost any move with at least one item off the list.
Some items are clearly a response to public pressure (minimizing impact on recently redistricted schools plays right into SPARK's plan) and some are fairly opposite public opinion (retaining the split ES model and refuting the K-8 model). The nod to geographic and infrastructural boundaries is good (remains to be seen if DeKalb Ave. will be so identified), and the point about retaining existing programs bodes well for Whitefoord and Coan, while the favoring of recently renovated schools bodes well for BPA. Still and all, there is so much wiggle in here, I'm not going to comfortable until I see the actual plans themselves.
Of note, this whole process might have been a lot more palatable if they'd STARTED with this outline of principles. Don't draw a damn thing until you agree on a set of guidelines... but that's water under the bridge at this point. And I don't know that, based on where we are in the process and the negativity that's been generated, this list can noticeably dampen the inevitable firestorm after the next reveal.
