Last week, we mapped out where the neighborboods of East Atlanta Patch send their children to grammar school.

Today we look at the middle schools. 

At the middle school level, most of the neighborhoods of the East Atlanta Patch are zoned to attend Coan Middle in Edgewood and King Middle in Grant Park.

But a few neighborhoods are zoned to attend Imnan Middle in Virginia-Highland.

During the ongoing Atlanta Public Schools redistricting debate, part of the discussion has focused on the schools that are underutilized, such as Coan and why that is, while others, like Inman, have more students than they have room to hold.

Both King and Coan are underutilized at 62.2 percent and 34.3 percent, respectively.

King loses 117 students to Atlanta Neighborhood Charter School in Ormewood Park. Coan Middle loses 124 students to Drew Charter in East Lake.

Inman Middle is at overcapacity at 130 percent. But only 25 students at Inman Middle are from the King and Coan attendance zones.

We looked at the middle schools in East Atlanta Patch and how the student populations shake out, based on APS and Bleakly Advisory Group figures:

Both Coan and King, are split feeders that send kids to Jackson and Grady high schools.

King and Coan have left parents concerned about their academic performance; Coan is ranked 422nd out of the Georgia's 479 middle schools, according to schooldigger.com. King is ranked 391st; Inman is 46th.

Even with those numbers, Coan parents and supporters note their school has several things in its favor:

• Rick Rieder, managing director and chief investment officer of fundamental fixed income portfolios at BlackRock and Emory University alumnus, donated $1 million to Coan to fund Graduation Generation-Atlanta, partnership of APS, Emory University's Office of University-Community Partnerships and Communities in Schools of Atlanta, a nonprofit organization.
• Students from Emory, which donated another $500,000 to the project, will serve as tutors and the university's learning camps for middle and high schoolers will support summer programs in math, science, reading and writing and college prep.
• Coan is the only APS middle school to offer Chinese.

Here's how the middle schools in East Atlanta Patch rank academically according to schooldigger.com:

From the many parents we've spoken with as well as those who've sent us e-mails, there are several key ingredients that make for a successful school:

• Strong parental involvement
• Responsive administration (principal and teachers) at the local school level
• Strong Local School Council and PTA
• Financial support from APS

APS superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr. has said he wants more communication between elementary and middle schools teachers so as kids advance their instructors have a better sense of overall student strengths and weaknesses when they get to the middle school level.

But what else is needed? What's lacking in terms of support, services and resources at the lower-performing schools that could help them rise academcally?