As a Lin parent, I wholeheartedly object to this proposal, made in a total vacuum without a single conversation with the Lin community as a whole. Coan's district abandoned Coan by attending Drew, and Lin will not fill that void - but rather continue its successful and long-standing participation in the Grady cluster. Suggest what's best for your children, not what's best for anybody else's. Thanks.

If all of Drew's middle schoolers went to Coan (and they are not all from the Coan zone), Coan STILL would not be half-filled.

The problem of over-capacity in KW, EL & EA is the falling number of school-age children, not abandonment of the public schools by the people living there.

You're a bit behind on the issues; I can't type all of them here.

Yes, Coan has capacity for 900, and has 300 enrolled. Toomer has made good gains in population, parental support, and testing; EL is projected to be moved there; the elementary would prefer to stay where it is (there is another under-enrolled ES in Edgwood, Whitefoord, that will be getting some more students; it has also been making gains, and has a long-time clinic there). All the schools in that area have far too much capacity, and the same is true in E. ATL and other parts of SE ATL.

The Inman parents are very much not on board with a move to Coan, and they are looking at alternatives, and locations.

King MS, although pretty far from Coan (app. 4 mi.) is also under-capacity (about 60%). Current plan calls for KW & EL to join the Jackson cluster, which is, really, as big a bone of contention for those neighborhoods as closing Coan. When they saw that not only would they lose Grady, but also Coan, and then have Grady/Inman kids come to their neighborhood- shit hit the fan.

I wish Coan and its neighborhoods would accept the fact that the best option for them - right now- is to join us in the Jackson cluster, and push APS to give the resources necessary to make all the cluster's schools, including King and Jackson, into good schools.

I live in Ormewood, so my opinions are just that- and I don't have good insight into how well the Emory programs have actually performed, nor if they will transfer any of them should Coan close.

Both Coan and King were designed by the same architect, in what was labelled "Brutalist" design: check 'em out, no windows. I think both of them look like prisons, actually worse than some prisons. Davis has said that money will be available for King to renovate (to what degree, was unstated).

Again, my bias: I'm the parent of a 9th grader at Jackson. Jackson is to be renovated, from the ground up; the students will be moved to another location for at least a year. I and others see Coan as a good alternative for that year. It may also awwuage some feelings over there, and introduce that neighborhood to Jackson's students and faculty.

As far as DeKalb Ave./Decatur St. as the divider: seems to make sense, right now. Grady & Inman are overcrowded, something has to give. Make sense to redraw lines at the periphery. Some projections show that in a few years, Grady will have to make more adjustments; the Lin question may come up again.

Really, the problem is not the zoning, it is the performance- or lack thereof- of the schools south of Dekalb. We need to hold APS' feet to the fire, make Davis follow through on his promises, and have schools that attract students and families. KW & EL could help us do that, and I wish they would get on board with us, rather than fight an uphill battle. I don't think can win, and I fear that experience will leave them embittered.

P-Leeeeez. Do not try to tell us when you purchased a home closer to Coan than Inman you really had no idea that your kids might not be able to continue at the overcrowded school and would be redistricted to the not-overcrowded school. Please, nobody can claim that with a straight face.

We know people who say that couldn't afford ME area. That's what makes the threat of private school so funny. Those people purchased homes that were closer to Coan than to Inman. It's not like Coan hasn't been there for 40 years. It's like people who purchase a home next to an airport and then try to get laws passed to diminish the noise, or someone renting above a fast food place, then complaining about the smell.

I have written this before and I will write it again. It logically does not make sense to move Mary Lin out of Inman/Grady. If you have schools that are relatively successful, you give them the resources they need to continue to be successful. If this were the business world, we would not break up a successful subsidiary because another one is flailing. We would invest in the successful subsidiary and work on bringing the flailing business up to par. So you pull Mary Lin out of Inman and then what? Coan magically becomes an excellent school? NO, what happens is you have 400 instead of 300 children attending a sub par school. Coan should be closed and all those children who attend it should be allowed to attend a school that is not rated as one of the worst middle schools in Georgia. APS had a duty to provide a better education to those children.

Please, concerned parent, look an East Lake elementary student or her parents in the eye and tell her that it "logically makes sense" to close her elementary school, close her middle school ("investing" in bussing her 6 miles each way per day) and remove her from Grady and zone her to a failing school. And by the way, when Coan is closed, this won't allow the students "to attend a school that is not rated as one of the worst" -- the only thing it will "allow" them to do is ride on a bus 5-6 miles each way, passing their empty neighborhood campus, to attend a different failing school that does not have the innovative programs that Coan does. All this while APS "invests" its limited resources in ensuring that VaHi and Morningside's neighborhood school remains overcrowded with ML students, most of whom live closer to Coan. APS's "duty" should be to stop listening to people like "concerned parent" and consider what is best for all students -- not just those who are fortunate enough to live north of Dekalb Avenue.

Ramiro, so your suggestion is that if children attend a failing school those children should be bussed miles away to a school that isn't much better? What about trying to improve that school rather than close it because it's teachers cheated /there aren't enough windows/Dekalb ave is dangerous etc etc. I have a difficult time listening to you praise Jackson when you won't even send your own kids there! You send them to Decatur schools. Just so you know, it is highly likely that Decatur High will not accept tuition students next year due to a large influx of teenagers so you had better start planning for your own kids to attend Jackson, the school you are so keen to talk up to everyone else....

@Ramiro, can you keep those of us who are interested updated on the search for a principal at King and Jackson?

I was actually talking about Coan. And apologies, I am just sick of people talking of Coan (and therefore the kids that go to Coan) as if even going near the building would give them leprosy. I Understand the under utilization argument, but you cannot deny that all the schools slated for closure came out the worst when the cheating scandal broke.And now those schools and their pupils are disparaged through no fault of their own. It seems that APS is making children suffer for their own corrupt system.
Oh, and I live in Decatur City. Yes, K-5 is not open for tuition applicants this coming year. But just so you know, there is every sign that there will be no slots in grades 9-12 from 2013. Just so you know. But I'm sure you will not hesitate to enrol your kids at Jackson next year, right?

Yes, agreed. Thanks for the advice -- good thing my kid is an upper-classman.