APS Redistricting: Demographers' Single Option

From four to two and now, one.

The consulting firm advising the Atlanta Public Schools on the massive rezoning of schools released a singular option that calls for East Lake Elementary's closure, the merger of Hope-Hill and Cook elementary schools and keeping Whitefoord Elementary open for the next three years.

This recommendation follows the original released last year and the in January. 

For the schools of East Atlanta Patch they now advise APS should:

• Create a kindergarten center that would serve , Springdale Park and Morningside elementary schools or expand Springdale Park Elementary School's capacity.
• Close and merge with .
• Merge and elementary schools.
• Keep both and open for three years to ensure that "utilization of these schools doesn’t rise too fast due to the large preschool bubble entering those schools. In the event that the additional capacity is not needed, Whitefoord could eventually be merged into Burgess-Peterson."
• Create a 5-6 grade center at a suitable location within School Reform Team 3 that solve could elementary school overcrowding at Mary Lin.
• Close Thomasville Heights Elementary and merge it into Benteen Elementary in School Reform Team 2.
• "Selective capacity additions to the south of I-20 may also make possible the development of better solutions to reduce excess capacity represented by and King middle schools. We would be open to evaluating such alternatives in order to assist Superintendent Davis in making his recommendation to the School Board."

This list of options, released late Thursday, comes just days before APS Superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr. his singular redistricting recommendations to parents on March 4.

On March 5, Davis will make a formal presentation to the Atlanta Board of Education.

Davis has said while he will take the demographers' recommendations into consideration, they are not binding.

"I'm in no way bound by what the demographers have put out there," he said in a at APS' downtown headquarters.