School Board Schedules Redistricting Vote for North Fulton

The Fulton School Board could vote on attendance zones for North Fulton to fit in the new high school being built on Bethany Bend as early as tonight. Students, parents and staff would know in general who will be going to that school, and who might shift among other high school and middle schools north of the Chattahoochee River. The latest version of the redistricting maps left Johns Creek school zones untouched.

The new school is being built to relieve overcrowding at existing high schools, including Roswell, Alpharetta and Milton. Redistricting wouldn't take affect until the 2012-2013 school year, when the school would first open.

Susan Hale, spokesperson for the school system, said the board has several options during tonight's meeting. It could approve the redistricting map as it is, reject it, or they could ask planning staff to go back and modify it to bring back to the board.

More than 10,000 comments have been made since redistricting discussions began, said school board member Katie Reeves, but in the last month, only about 600 comments were made.

"For those, about a third have been positive," said Reeves, whose district is most affected by this redistricting. "So I think what that tells you is that our process has worked.

"We have had a very open process that has allowed for lots of comments from our community, and as the process has progressed, I think the issues that can be addressed within the criteria have been addressed," Reeves said.

"The new high school was built to relieve really pretty severe overcrowding, and the map that's before the board really tries to balance the enrollment," she said.

Mike Nyden, who helped form the group Roswell Residents for Reasonable Redistricting and has announced a , had hopes the groups efforts had worked.

"We were able, I think, to get some substantial changes to the original maps through creatively providing input that wasn’t part of the expressed criteria. I hope the final map will reflect additional input that has been provided by the public," Nyden said.

He said that following the vote, he hopes the board would follow through on a discussion of the process itself, "which solicits no meaningful input from the community." 

Roswell resident Claire Bartlett, a key player in the Roswell group, said the redistricting process should be investigated and challenged.

"The process is not in line with what is best for students, parents, neighborhoods or communities. The process is inline with bureaucracy, administration, politics, ideology and budgets (i.e. if it's in the budget, it must be spent)," said Bartlett, in an e-mail to Roswell Patch.

It's too much for a school board and should be handled by locally elected officials, she said.

Paul Nickel of Milton still questions the redistricting plan, asking why 27 percent of middle school students are going to the new high school after being together with the same children from elementary to middle school.

"Why are Roswell kids who are 10 miles away going to Milton High School," he asked in an email response to a request for his opinion. "Why are kids two to three miles away from Milton High School, specifically the White Columns neighborhood, going to Bethany High School which is five miles away? Why are those kids being separated from their middle school friends?"

He also questioned opening Bethany with 1,700 students when its capacity is 1,900. Opening it with 1,3000 students would allow the system to alleviate more pressure because most of the growth is at GA 9, Nickel said.

"If geographic proximity is the first thing the board lists as their criteria, why is this all happening. Truly sad," he said.

Reeves, answering questions about the process, said the biggest misunderstanding was that some people think that it's a numerical vote–if enough comments are made, residents can get something specific to happen.

"And the process really is not like that," Reeves said.

The staff looks to make sure comments provide valid input on the criteria, and they consider all of the comments made on those criteria.

"Drawing high school lines is probably one of the toughest things a community goes through. And if there was a way to make every single person happy in this, I think we would look for it," Reeves said.

"But that said, when you are opening a new high school and drawing new lines, it's going to be tough no matter how good our process is," she said.

"One of the things that became clear very early on was that families did not want to be moved if they didn't have to be. And that's a pretty clear and consistent message throughout the process," Reeves said.

Some residents have asked why the school board doesn't expand existing schools to keep students in place.

"Somebody asked me why didn't we just put another floor on Roswell High School. That is not in fact possible, because when a building of that size is constructed, there are structural engineers who come in and figure out what the max load is. So you could not actually put an extra floor on a high school without compromising the structure," Reeves said.

"I think the main thing is we built the school with taxpayer's dollar to offload the overcrowding," she said.

The school is coming online on time and on budget. Attendance lines are being drawn in advance so that everybody can start making plans for the transition

"And at the end of the day, it will be another great school, another great high school in North Fulton. Because our goal is to have all great high schools in North Fulton," Reeves said.