Summerill is united in demanding good schools TODAY! from APS and the Atlanta Board of Education. Our children will no longer wait!

Excellent article! I'm a Summerhill resident and am happy to see this important story covered by Patch. Thank you Josh for so eloquently representing our neighborhood. You are absolutely right, our children deserve better. We are indeed prepared for a fight!

When making decisions and investments in the future, we must remember the impact on the children in school today. Summerhill’s children deserve to be in a performing school today.

El Baker
To add my two cents... SummerHill residents did not advocate for D.H Stanton to be closed or to be re-opened. SummerHill residents advocated to be rezoned from DH Stanton's district and go to Parkside. HOWEVER collateral damage from their advocacy resulted in D.H Stanton being placed on the closure list. Now the advocacy of PeoplesTown residents has resulted in SummerHill coming back to the tentative D.H Stanton zone.
The residents of PeoplesTown resisted our community school closing and have decided to do what Parkside parents did when it was an under performing school just a few short years ago. We have decided to roll up our sleeves and make DH Stanton a great community school.
Parkside did not become a good school overnight, parents took risk sending their kids there. They decided to put energy and sweat equity in making their school great and not in making excuses or searching for ready made schools in other communties.
As for us in Peoplestown, we have decided to stop searching else where and are committed to doing everything we can to make D.H Stanton a great school. And yes that includes sending our children there! I hope the residents of SummerHill will join us in this fight to make our community school great.

This should be a no brainer. Over 93% of all grammar schools in Georgia perform better than Stanton student test scores, taxpaying citizens (Summerhill) don't and won't send their kids there (and who would?) and the school is in need of millions of dollars in upgrades while APS is facing a multi-year budget shortfall. Seems like a vacancy problem will remain in place no matter what happens.

Wow! these schools and children have failed under OUR community watch and all we can do is point fingers, complain and look for other communities to bail us out.

The indictment of under performing schools is on us and APS. When was the last time we offered tutoring help at Cook or Stanton or we asked the Principal or teachers if we could help in anyway? Whats a no brainer is we want something for nothing... the only place to find success before work is in the dictionary.

ParkSide used to report scores just like the one you just quoted, but at some point the parents and children stiffened their backs and got to work.

I have lived in intown Atlanta communties for over 25 years and I remember when very few people wanted to live in Grant Park. Grant Park did the hard work of revitalizing their community and their schools, I suggest we stand up and do the same and stop trying get a free ride off of others efforts.

Nobody wants to take risks with their kid's education.

El: Parkside was *not* posting test scores like those at DH Stanton a few years ago. DHS's test scores are truly dismal. And it was not Grant Park who invested at Parkside. Instead, APS invested in Parkside and Benteen, giving those schools some resources & some decent staff (better at Parkside). Under Beverly Hall, the Cook & Stanton's investments: installing a corrupt principal who inflated test scores and who chased off people in the community who volunteered the help you mention. (By contrast, Benteen's puffed up test scores were accompanied by some actual teaching.) What if the choice were to shut down DH Stanton & move the kids to Cook - would you support a rezoning to Cook? Both DHS & Cook would be starting below zero with a long way to go. In the case of DHS, we can only hope that if it stays open, the entire staff triggers for rehiring, $2 million for basics, & then hopefully money can be scrounged up somewhere for a playground. Benteen is starting with good buildings & with some good teachers on staff. We had an option that put every single child in Peoplestown & Summerhill into a higher performing school in August 2012. I don't think Peoplestown has recognized the immense work that will be necessary to get DHS up to the level of Benteen, nor the impact they have had on their neighbors. Grant Park lost our elementary schools 10+ years ago, just as the neighborhood woke up to invest at Slaton. In Slaton's place we got ANCS & Parkside. It was a good trade.

Reward without risk, wow! tell me where do they do that...? "nobody wants to take risk with their kids education'' Then just ask the people who came before you at ParkSide, Atlanta Youth Academy, Neighborhood Charter, Drew, Centennial, Wesley International, Toomer etc. Risk were taken and duties were not handed off. All of these schools, public, charter and private were hard decisions made by parents and followed up with action. If we dont fight for OUR kids education and OUR communities now, we will see these kids again and it might be at the other end of a double gauge after a Braves game or after a nice family walk. Children who dont get educated commit crimes, thats a fact!

Now is not the time to run or skirt, its legacy making time... lets do this together -)

I agree with Andrea. Working to improve a failing school takes years and major investment from the community, school system, administration and parents. APS did invest heavily in Parkside and a majority of their students, in fact, are out of district transfers -- many APS employee's children. They recognized the potential, hired strong leaders and worked with the Grant Park community. We can't give all the credit to the neighborhood in this case. I applaud Peoplestown for wanting to invest in their school. However, I fear it may be too little too late. As far as I'm aware, the people who are most strongly advocating to keep Stanton open do not have school aged children -- and if they do -- do not send their children there. No one wants to gamble on their child's education. It isn't fair to ask Summerhill to sacrifice when Peoplestown residents won't do the same.

It just seems to me that we can make a difference together and be a shining light for others to see. PeoplesTown and SummerHill both have neighbors with advanced degree's, we both have high salaried families, we both have community activist and we are both are in need of education options. I'm simply suggesting that if we work together we can have a school as good as if not better than most of APS and Charter Schools. I'm just saying...

Folks this is revisionist history, ParkSide was one of the worst schools in the city. Dr Battle, APS, PTA, students, parents and the community helped to turn that school around. Sorry Andrea it was a bad school.

The superintendent and his team have made the recommendation that Summerhill be zoned to Parkside Elementary, and Peoplestown be zoned to Benteen Elementary. This recommendation was voted on and approved by the APS Board. The APS BOARD VOTE that APPROVED this measure will give 447 CHILDREN the opportunity to move from UNDER-PERFORMING Cook Elementary and D.H. Stanton Elementary Schools, to PERFORMING SCHOOLS. In effect, changing the educational future for these kids RIGHT NOW! After all our children have been through with APS, why should they have to wait on future promises, when they can have a BETTER EDUCATION....RIGHT NOW???!!!

ANYBODY THAT WOULD SPEAK OR VOTE AGAINST THIS NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM SPEAKING FOR THE CHILDREN OF OUR COMMUNITY FOR NOW AND FOREVER!!!

SO ROLL YOUR SLEAVES UP AND CHECK YOURSELF INTO AN INSANE ASYLUM... BUT SUMMERHILL REFUSES TO CHECK IN WITH YOU!!

Have a great day... And I will be praying for your children's future!

David Mitchell
Summerhill Resident for 11 years with kids in public schools RIGHT NOW!!!!

The bottom line is that APS/Board handled and continues to handle this poorly. Now, in the 11th hour, two historically underserved neighborhoods are at odds because of it. Summerhill wants every kid in Summerhill, Peoplestown, and Atlanta to have the opportunity to be in an AYP performing school RIGHT NOW as well as in the future. Peoplestown wants the opportunity to see the work they are putting into their neighborhood school to come to fruition. These two perspectives are not inherently at odds, but it takes real leadership at the APS, especially at the Board level, to bring everyone together to find a solution that doesn’t involve one neighborhood being resentful of the other.

Wow! insane asylum...must have touched a nerve! its a tentative decision folks, it could change tommorow. Well i guess I better get back to working with all of these insane folks over here...Wow maybe thats what we need, some insane people to do some radical ish to save our children and our schools. I will stick to rolling up my sleeves and you be careful around those insane people. If this doesnt go your way, theres always transfer options...

A clarification to my previous statement: We all take calculated and informed risks. DH Stanton's current risk factors are greater than Parkside's. It is that simple.

With all due respect, El... When you say "HOWEVER collateral damage from their advocacy resulted in D.H Stanton being placed on the closure list." - that is an incorrect statement. The "collateral damage" has occurred prior any rezoning discussions, by former APS leadership and by our communities not demanding a quality education for all kids - whether we attend or not.

That said, the MAIN factor is Thomasville Heights staying open - which is should! Thomasville Heights has well over 400 students and should never had been on the closure list and proposed to send their kids to Benteen - while then sending a good number of Benteen zoned kids to D.H. Stanton.

Keeping Thomasville Heights open is what affected the decision to close D.H. Stanton, since Benteen is a more recently renovated school in very good condition - thus the closing of D.H. Stanton.

I don't fault anyone for advocating for their community, in any way - they should. But, where has everyone been for the past decade or longer?

I don't think it advances any argument to say that someone who disagrees with you 'NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM SPEAKING FOR THE CHILDREN'. Reasonable people can disagree. That would be like me saying anyone that can't correctly spell 'sleeves' should not be allowed to express his opinion. That just isn't right.

I don't think it advances any argument to say that someone who disagrees with you 'NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM SPEAKING FOR THE CHILDREN'. Reasonable people can disagree. That would be like me saying anyone that can't correctly spell 'sleeves' should not be allowed to express his opinion. That just isn't right.

As a resident of Summerhill, I frankly can't understand why anyone would want their children to go to an underperforming school like Stanton, when both communities have the opportunity to send their children to higher performing schools (Summerhill to Parkside, Peoplestown to Benteen). Why on earth would you not want the best education possible for your children? And that is all Summerhill is asking for. If Peoplestown wants to continue to send their children to a underperforming school, with widespread cheating scandals and dangerous facilities, then that is their choice. Summerhill chooses our children and putting their education and safety first before all else. We want a good education for our children now, not a promise of a potentially good education in the future. Words are cheap, the scores speak volumes. After all, it is not like Stanton being an underperforming school is news, it has been that way for years and has not improved. So why should we believe that is going to change?

SUMMERHILL WILL NOT STAND BACK AND BE SENT TO A WORSE PERFORMING SCHOOL. WE WILL FIGHT FOR WHAT IS BEST FOR OUR CHILDREN AND THEIR EDUCATION!!! UNITED WE STAND.

For perspective, Summerhill used to have an elementary school - Ralph McGill. I worked there with the Hands on Atlanta AmeriCorps program from 1994 - 1996. It was a small, underperforming school, but with dedicated leadership and community support. (Sound familiar?) Despite all of the efforts and energy invested to make it work, it's gone and Summerhill's children are at Cook. We will not allow this to happen again. Each community should be able to decide and advocate, on its own, for the best opportunity for its children. Summerhill made its decision prior to the board meeting and advocated for it. If Peoplestown and the Board want DHS to remain open, then they need to do what it takes to make that school work. It cannot be achieved by forcing the children of Summerhill to sacrifice for the potential future of Peoplestown. This is our opportunity and we will do everything we can to take it.

I believe two things Summerhill deserves a GREAT school RIGHT NOW! and children are more important than buildings. We have two communities that have been failed by APS for decades and a chance to RIGHT NOW! have good schools , so why would you wait? The Superintendent didn't want to wait. Summerhill didn't close Stanton! Summerhill chose a better school for our community! We don't feel badly and are proud we put are children first! Now it's time for the Board to do the responsible and morally right thing! Make the recommendation to the Superintendent to RE-ZONE! Summerhill to Patkside. That's why there called "Tentative" maps. Board members who don't put children first will pay the piper in Noverber 2013!