APS Redistricting: What Coan Middle's Children Have To Say

In the redistricting debate about Atlanta Public Schools, we've heard from many voices.

Parents, teachers, school administrators, demographer consultants, community and business leaders, and Superintendent Erroll B. Davis Jr., of course, have all weighed in.

The one constituency we haven't heard from is the group that's affected the most by the redistricting: Kids.

The redistricting will result in some schools expanding, merging with others or closing altogether.

The latest plan, presented by Davis to the APS Board of Education March 5, calls for in Edgewood to close. The children zoned to attend Coan — from the Edgewood, East Lake, Kirkwood and East Atlanta neighborhoods — would attend King Middle School in Grant Park.

East Atlanta Patch met with three Coan students to talk with them about the redistricting and get their perspective on the proposed changes and they affect them.

In this Patch Voices editorial, Kierra Sinkfield and Askari Flewellen, both 12-year-old 7th graders shared their thoughts on having to leave their neighborhood school to travel roughly four miles away to King.

Uwezo Flewellen II, Askari's 14-year-old brother and 8th grader, shared his views on the part of the plan that redistricts Coan out of the Grady cluster and its higher-performing . Instead, he would go to the Jackson cluster and its lower-performing in Grant Park.