City Council Members Express Concerns on APS Redistricting

District 8 Councilwoman Yolanda Adrean expressed concern that the APS redistricting process is limited to parents with children in the public schools.

“My major concern is that we really don’t have all the stakeholders at the table,” she said Tuesday, a day after the Atlanta City Council held a joint meeting with the Atlanta School Board on the school district changes.

could lead to the closing of under-capacity schools in southern parts of the city and construction of a new elementary and middle school in Buckhead, where schools are overcrowded.

Adrean pointed out that all property owners pay for schools and that school decisions “impact communities profoundly regardless of whether you have a child in school.” She said a school closure can have “devastating” economic results, while the building of a new school brings increased traffic and other concerns.

“They still haven’t decided how to accommodate our overcrowded elementary and middle school children,” Adrean said. “We don’t know what they’re going to do at and , and these are big, big items of conversation.”

She said, “I plan on staying involved and engaged” as the APS makes its final decisions, expected in early spring. She also urged all residents, even those without children in APS schools, to get involved in the process.

District 7 Councilman Howard Shook, emphasizing that the APS is in “the beginning phase of this analysis,” said “I’m a little concerned about whether or not there will be a new elementary school in the district I represent as well as a new middle school.” He said that if the new schools are built in District 7, the city council would be responsible for paying for such necessities as sidewalks and traffic signals “and those thing can be very expensive.”

He said that one option in the four APS plans now receiving public comment show a potential new middle school in the southern part of Buckhead, where council districts 7 and 8 run together. Another possibility is the construction of the new elementary school in the southeastern part of the seventh district.

“But those are just scenarios,” he said. “Currently, a lot of this is in flux.”

on the preliminary school redistricting plans, according to a city council news release on the meeting.

“The reality is that there will be no easy long-term solutions when it comes to redistricting,”  District 9 City Councilmember Felicia Moore, who represents part of Buckhead, said, according to the news release. “In the communities I represent, the demolition of public housing has impacted public school enrollment. By working with the city’s planning department, APS will get a better understanding of where our population shifts are occurring.”


A copy of the Atlanta Public Schools 2011 Demographic-Capacity Study can be downloaded at http://www.atlanta.k12.ga.us/Page/413,

Comments can be e-mailed to APS at  apsdemographicstudy@atlantapublicschools.us