Schools

APS Redistricting: Reynoldstown Supports Option A

'Reynoldstown is still a neighborhood on the rise, and zoning us with our neighbors to a school that we could work together to improve would continue this growth rather than hindering it.'

The Reynoldstown Civic Improvement League, the association that represents that community, sent its response today to the Atlanta Public Schools concerning the current redistricting process.

RCIL, which supports Option A, shared its statement with East Atlanta Patch. Option A has the neighborhood's children in schools cluster of Burgess-Peterson Academy in East Atlanta, Coan Middle in Edgewood and Jackson High School in Grant Park. In its statement, Reynoldstown says it supports Option A because "it groups us with Edgewood, portions of Kirkwood, and East Atlanta for elementary school, and additionally Grant Park, Ormewood Park, and Glenwood Park for Middle and High School."

But RCIL notes Option A also splits Cabbagetown and the portion of Grant Park north of I-20 to another schools cluster that would feed into Grady.

Find out what's happening in East Atlantawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Removing those neighborhoods from the Jackson cluster "arbitrarily breaks existing neighborhood ties," RCIL wrote in its statement.

Option B, the associaition said, is not desirable because it only puts Reynoldstown with two other neighborhoods at Whitefoord Elementary in Edgewood, "giving us less of a chance than Option A to make an impact and create a successful elementary school."

Find out what's happening in East Atlantawith free, real-time updates from Patch.

What's more Option B, would not bring the student population at Whitefoord up to APS' of student capacity of between 80 percent and 90 percent.

Whitefoord has total , but the school only has 240 students enrolled, a utilization rate of 42 percent.

Reynoldstown says Option B would only bring the the school to just above 50 percent utilization even if every child who would be zoned for Whitefoord attended it.

"This is not a scenario that sets up Whitefoord, nor the neighborhoods districted to attend it, for success," RCIL wrote.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

More from East Atlanta