Loring Heights Calls for Keeping E. Rivers Community Together

Brian O’Neill, president of the Loring Heights Neighborhood Association, sent the following letter to Buckhead school board member Nancy Meister, opposing both of the APS' redistricting options. The community is seeking to remain in the

Dear Nancy:

I am again writing to you on behalf of more than 120 children and over 300 property owners in Loring Heights. We have reviewed the second set of maps that were released [recently], and remain very concerned that the voices of our neighborhood, NAAPS and the E. Rivers Local School Council are not being heard.

Rather than arguing for or against the specific options A or B, our neighborhood focused instead on the big picture goal of keeping SRT-4 together, and how this might be accomplished. To that end, we agreed on the following principles:

1. Do not move children from other SRTs into our already overcrowded SRT-4. This will allow us to focus on our primary goal of keeping E. Rivers Elementary School together, and likely solves many of the middle school questions as well.
2. Keep E. Rivers Elementary school together by building a larger school. We believe E. Rivers should be held up by APS as a model school — the school is diverse, it is strongly supported by its families, and most importantly, it does all of this while maintaining a high level of achievement! Our neighborhoods voted in favor of SPLOST funds to renovate E. Rivers this past summer, and we believe these funds can be used to build a school large enough (750-800 seats) to accommodate ALL current E. Rivers students, as well as the upcoming “bubble” of additional students.
3. Do not build an additional middle school. Again, we believe that by not adding children from other SRTs, we can accommodate the existing children in SRT-4 between and the current campus for middle school. This should allow APS to save money by not building an entirely new school!
4. Make Sutton a 6th grade campus, and the current North Atlanta High School a 7th and 8th grade campus. Recent studies have shown the benefits of separating 6th graders from 7th and 8th graders, which this would accomplish. Additionally, we believe that separate campuses will allow the diversity which is so treasured by SRT-4 to remain throughout middle school and thus onto high school. Finally, splitting campuses would allow both middle schools to maintain the IB curriculum from K-12.

We are asking for your support in our efforts to provide our children with the best possible educational opportunities. The options presented above should allow you to meet your goals of fully utilizing schools, while also serving the best interests of our children. We hope you will listen!

Brian O’Neill
President
Loring Heights Neighborhood Association