'Mommy, Is That School Broken?'

Suzanne Mitchell believes in Atlanta Public Schools.

The Summerhill mom of four-year-old twins believes committed parents and unified neighborhoods will help improve those schools that need help.

But she also believes that’s only part of the equation.

APS needs to be committed to all of its schools, too, she said during an interview Sunday afternoon.

She and other parents from several Southeast Atlanta neighborhoods met at the Grant Park Recreation Center to discuss released Friday. The demographers that drew up the proposals were contracted by APS to help the district develop a plan to relieve overcrowding in some schools, underutilization in others and address expected population booms in some neighborhoods.

The two proposals would have Mitchell’s children attending D.H. Stanton Elementary, in Peoplestown, then King Middle and schools in Grant Park.

But the options are unacceptable unless APS commits more resources toward those schools and hold their administrators to the standards parents expect in other parts of the city.

At Stanton for example, the exterior condition of the school is deplorable.

“The exterior conditions of the school are atrocious,” she said, showing pictures of crumbling steps and a playground of broken and missing equipment.

Even letters from the school name are missing from the sign in front of the building.

“My son’s response was, ‘Mommy is that school broken,’ ” Mitchell said. “If my son, who gets exposed to Grant Park, Bessie Branham and Old Fourth Ward Park, if this is what he sees at a school just driving by, imagine how the children feel coming there every day?”

A recent tour of King Middle wasn’t too comforting either.

Her tour guide took Mitchell around the school munching on potato chips and drinking fruit juice.

“We went into a sixth grade language arts class and the teacher? She was slouched in her chair asleep,” Mitchell said. Some of the children were running around with scissors as their teacher slept.

An APS spokesman said he could not address the specifics of these two cases, but he said procedures are in place for physical maintenance and personnel performance.

“In both instances, concerns regarding physical structure or personnel issues should be reported to the principal or school administrators for action,” APS spokesman Keith Bromery said. “Principals interface regularly with APS Facilities Department officials for maintenance and repairs. And there are disciplinary policies and procedures in place to address personnel issues.”

To Mitchell, who said she is looking at enrolling her twins in charter schools, the examples she cited illustrate what’s wrong with APS: some neighborhoods have parents dedicated to doing their part to supporting their schools but the district isn’t putting the resources toward those schools.

“We need to spread the resources to the areas that need them the most,” she said. That means identifying those good administrators and developing a succession plan at their schools so that those principals can be moved to institutions that need improvement, Mitchell said.

It also means that parents citywide need to understand they have a stake the success of every school, not just their child’s.

“It’s not ‘their’ problem, it’s ‘our’ problem,” Mitchell said. “We have to be responsible for all our children.”