SPLOST Supporter Wants APS to Consider Charter, Magnet School for Proposed Elementary

A Buckhead parent who led efforts to support SPLOST IV’s passage said APS should consider charter or magnet school status for a proposed new Buckhead elementary.

Katie Mori, an accountant and y parent, said “I think all options need to be on the table.” She said that a charter or magnet school would allow Buckhead to avoid the politically divisive process of redistricting.

“My question is do we want to go through redistricting?” she said. “We seem to be on a very good path of everybody coming together as a community. It might be beneficial to create a magnet or charter school that wouldn’t require redistricting. Redistricting leaves a bad taste in everybody's mouth.”

She stressed that her suggestion for exploring a magnet or charter school option is because she believes the APS Buckhead schools “a success, not a failure.”

Although the SPLOST IV  specifies the construction of a new elementary in Buckhead, Mori said that’s not a definite solution to school overcrowding. She said that a pending demographic study could determine that the APS over the next 10 years could handle the student population through renovation of present facilities rather than construction of a new schoo. The SPLOST proposal is just a list of possibilities, she said, and that money can be moved around to different priorities, based on demographics.

For example, she said that although the SPLOST calls for a new gymnasium and classroom space at Morris Brandon, she pointed out tht the school system has not yet done a feasibility study to see if such an expansion can be done at Brandon’s primary site.

“There’s still a lot that APS needs to do,” she said in regard to the Buckhead schools. “I don’t think that’s been a top priority.”