Friday, September 26, 2003

Meetings to address school districts

The Fulton County School System has announced three community meetings that will address the redistricting process and timeline for a new middle school under construction on CampbelltonRoad in south Atlanta. The meetings begin in mid-October and will be used to gather specific information needed to draft a redistricting proposal that best meets the needs of the community.

During the meetings, community members will review the board's redistricting criteria and can comment on impending residential development, traffic, previous redistricting, special programs, and other issues relevant to the criteria used for redrawing attendance lines.

The meetings take place in three rounds, and each will be held from 7-9 p.m.at Stonewall Tell Elementary School, located at 3310 Stonewall Tell Road in College Park.

Oct. 16

· School system staff outlines redistricting process and establishes ground rules for facilitated small-group input sessions.

· Participants move to small-group sessions and input is gathered related to the redistricting criteria.

· Staff reviews public comments and applies board-approved redistricting criteria to develop alternative attendance zone plans prior to the next community forum.

Oct. 28

· Staff presents alternative plans for 2004-05 middle school attendance zones developed with established criteria and community input.

· Community members comment on strengths and weaknesses of each plan in facilitated small-group discussions.

· Prior to the next community forum, staff condenses the number of attendance zone alternatives based on public input.

Nov. 12

· Community members review and provide input on revised attendance zone alternatives in facilitated small-group discussions.

· Staff uses comments to develop final attendance zone options for board consideration.

Two types of criteria ­ primary and secondary ­ are used by school system staff to develop new attendance zones.

Primary Criteria include;

·Geographic proximity ­ Distance traveled using available routes of transportation.

·Instructional capacity ­ Number of students who can be aaccommodated at the school, taking into account the number of classrooms and resource rooms needed for art, music, laboratories, foreign language, English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), special education, and Talented and Gifted (TAG) programs.

·Projected enrollment ­ Number of students assigned to a school taking into account the future projected enrollment.

Secondary Criteria include:

· Traffic patterns ­ Factors impacting accessibility of the school from all portions of the attendance zone, including travel time, traffic flow in the area, safe operation of school buses, and other safety considerations.

· Previous rezoning ­ The school system seeks to avoid rezoning neighborhoods more than once during a three-year period if facility sizes and geographic distribution of student populations allow.

· Special programs ­ The school system seeks to avoid placing in each zone disproportionate numbers of programs that serve children with special needs and require use of additional space over and above that of a regular classroom.

· School feeder alignment ­ Where possible, consideration is given to the alignment of elementary, middle, and high school attendance boundaries.

The Fulton County Board of Education will vote on the new attendance zones in February 2004, with changes going into effect in August 2004. More information on the redistricting process can be found online at www.fulton.k12.ga.us/redistricting.

The new middle school will open to students in August 2004. It is located adjacent toRandolph Elementary School and is less than two miles from Westlake High School.