Georgia First Lady Sandra Deal Visits Cook Elementary

Georgia First Lady Sandra Deal visited Cook Elementary School in the Capitol Gateway neighborhood Wednesday as part of her efforts to bring attention to children, education and literacy.

The lunchtime visit put a spotlight on the Power Lunch program, which pairs adult volunteers with children in low-income elementary schools. During lunchtime sessions, the adult mentors meet one-on-one with their mentees and read aloud to them.

The program is part of the Everybody Wins! initiative, a national group that aims to shrink the literacy gap between the children of low- and high-income families.

The volunteers Deal met were part of Everybody Wins' Atlanta chapter.

Cook Elementary is currently the school zone for children in the Capitol View, Summerhill and Cabbagetown neighborhoods.

But Atlanta Public Schools is in the middle of a massive redistricting project focused on consolidation of under-enrolled schools and relieving overcrowding at others.

Under plans currently being reviewed by parents and APS, Cook could close and merge with Hope-Hill Elementary in nearby Old Fourth Ward or vice-versa.

One reason Cook is under-enrolled is because parents in the school's zone are concerned about its academic performance.

Cook ranks next-to-last among the Elementary schools in East Atlanta Patch, based on the average 2011 math and language arts scores students recorded on the Criterion-Referenced Competency Test.

Of the 1,176 elementary schools statewide, Cook ranked 1,081 in Georgia, based on those scores.