Wednesday, March 21, 2001
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Wednesday, March 21, 2001 |
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Unhappy parents push for Kedron school redistricting By DAVE HAMRICK
Students from Kedron Hills subdivision in Peachtree City are feeling left out, according to Maria Kachadurian, a parent who lives there. A survey of the community conducted by the neighborhood association confirmed widespread dissatisfaction with the fact that Kedron Hills children are forced to leave their classmates behind when they move up from elementary school to middle and high school, Kachadurian told the Board of Education Monday night. "Our concern is the social impact that the current zoning has on our children," Kachadurian said. Kedron Hills children attend Kedron Elementary School along with their surrounding peers, but when school districts were redrawn two years ago, the subdivision was cut out of the pattern for the rest of Peachtree City on to Booth Middle School and McIntosh High. The Kedron Hills children go to Flat Rock Middle and Sandy Creek High. There's nothing wrong with those schools, Kachadurian hastened to say, adding that the problem is the social disruption. All of the other children in their churches, scouting groups and other social organizations attend Booth and McIntosh, she said, and those groups' events are often planned around the schedules at their schools. "Our children often are left out," she said. And if they want to socialize with their Flat Rock and Sandy Creek classmates, she added, they face "commutes of up to 30 minutes to play with their school mates. "The children have very little interaction with their classmates because of this," she said. The neighborhood is asking the board to consider switching their students to Booth and McIntosh in the next round of redistricting when new schools come on line in the next couple of years. Or if the Kedron Hills students are placed in a new school, they want the board to "insure that we are not the only Peachtree City neighborhood attending the school," Kachadurian said. Board Chairman Mickey Littlefield thanked Kachadurian for her input and directed school board staff to take her comments under advisement. Redistricting talks have not yet begun for the new schools, said Superintendent John DeCotis. That won't begin until a third and final school site is purchased. Board members discussed a site Monday night, but did not make the purchase. Once they know the locations of all the new schools, school board staff will come up with recommended boundary lines, and then the public will be asked for comment, said DeCotis.
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