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DeKalb County School District holding public meeting about Comprehensive Master Plan

Avondale Estates Metro ATL

DeKalb County School District holding public meeting about Comprehensive Master Plan

DeKalb County School District Administration and Instructional Complex on Mtn. Industrial Blvd. in Stone Mountain. Photo by Dean Hesse
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This story has been updated.

DeKalb County, GA — The Comprehensive Master Plan for DeKalb County Schools will be the focus of a public meeting on Dec. 14.

Here’s the full announcement from the school district:

Please tune in on Tuesday, Dec. 14, at 6 p.m. to view a live Q&A session on the Comprehensive Master Plan (CMP). Additionally, [Principal Advisory Council] members will have the opportunity to meet with district leadership and Perkins & Will for a Q&A in January 2022. Please click here to view the session.

The draft CMP was presented on Dec. 8. To view it, click here.

Here’s a video recording of a recent CMP presentation:

The plan will carry the district through 2031 and proposes an early learning center in every region of the school district, converting some schools to Kindergarten through eighth grade and merging some schools.

The plan is intended to address overcrowding, though currently the district is experiencing a COVID-related enrollment drop. The plan includes forecasts of overcrowding at several schools and under-enrollment at many more. The K-8s are intended to address dwindling enrollment in middle schools.

Funding for the projects in the plan will come from special purpose local option sales tax money and federal relief funding.

Here is a timeline for some key projects in this plan:

During the December DeKalb County School Board meeting, Superintendent Cheryl Watson-Harris presented a report that included the timeline for the Comprehensive Master Plan. An update on the plan will be presented to the board at the January Board of Education meeting.

Board member Dr. Joyce Morley questioned how decisions were made and how much public feedback was actually involved in the process. Morley also stated that the district should follow through on previous promises, decisions, and projects before adding new ones or rearranging school districts.

A group of parents, including Kristin Murff, Carey Maike Rozhavsky, and James Murff spoke against one of the proposals in the CMP, which is the proposed merger of Hawthorne Elementary and Henderson Mill Elementary.  James Murff stated that the plan was not in accordance with the stated goals of the district’s Comprehensive Master Plan.

“Building a new school with a $45 million budget is neither creating a neighborhood school nor being sensitive to costs,” said James Murff.

Kristin Murff said that promised eSPLOST money was not being spent on repairs because of the proposed new school, which will not be completed for several years. “Five more years of toilets that don’t work is unacceptable,” said Murff.

Writer Sara Amis contributed to this story.

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