The Legislature and the coming Battle for Northlake Mall (Atlanta: private school, shop)

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

Chiming in (mainly) so this thread will show up in my feed and I can keep up with the goings on. This is my primary.... if not only source for information about this.

Aries and I have discussed this before, but as a youngster I used to take colored pencils and "incorporate" much of DeKalb on metro area maps. It always bothered me that these weren't cities when in actuality they were cities in every other definition of a city.

And one more time, I will add my voice of disapproval for the ridiculous name of Lakeside. Drieduppondside is more appropriate.

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

One more point....

From an outsider looking in, the thing that makes the most sense is to drop the Lakeside effort and go with a Briarcliff and a Tucker. Let Tudker take some of the areas ITP that make it more successful... Maybe even a little deeper than previous proposals and let Briarcliff either come into being (little to no overlapping).

The Lakeside name is hurting its efforts methinks.

Yes.

[aries4118]

Originally Posted by cqholt

I say this because Coan was once a split feeder and feed into Jackson and Grady. That was shut down and Coan is just Jackson, yet has room to relieve Inman, but lord them poor Mary Line kids would have to go south of DeKalb. IS there a MS in Emory or Druid Hills?

Yes--Mary Lin should be rezoned to Coan/Jackson. Which just proves the point...the overcrowding issues with or without annexation can be solved.

People just have to be willing to do it...and let of go of, um..."hangups."


No, there is not a middle school in Emory/Druid Hills proper.

There's the old Briarcliff High (later the Open Campus of DeKalb, etc.) site up near where North Druid Hills Road intersects with Briarcliff Road--by Adams Stadium. And then there's Shamrock Middle (formerly Shamrock High, now "Druid Hills Middle"--blah!) just north of North DeKalb Mall.

[JPD]

Word on the street, hot off a meeting that just ended, is that Lakeside and Tucker cityhood bills are both dead for this year. Fran Millar says he won't be involved in any further Lakeside cityhood efforts. That's a good thing, imo, since his input (using voting districts to draw city boundaries) seemed to be the root cause of most of the contention between Tucker and Lakeside.

[lastminutemom]

Originally Posted by JPD

Word on the street, hot off a meeting that just ended, is that Lakeside and Tucker cityhood bills are both dead for this year. Fran Millar says he won't be involved in any further Lakeside cityhood efforts. That's a good thing, imo, since his input (using voting districts to draw city boundaries) seemed to be the root cause of most of the contention between Tucker and Lakeside.

If this happens again, the lines need to be drawn in a logical manner rather than by school districts.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

One more point....

From an outsider looking in, the thing that makes the most sense is to drop the Lakeside effort and go with a Briarcliff and a Tucker. Let Tudker take some of the areas ITP that make it more successful... Maybe even a little deeper than previous proposals and let Briarcliff either come into being (little to no overlapping).

The Lakeside name is hurting its efforts methinks.

I think the effort, despite all their denials, is all about a potential ability to create a separate school district. Other than commercial areas like Executive Park and the Laurel Ridge area, they are pretty much following the school zone.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by aries4118

And that can be done--and that would be OK.

It's dangerous for school systems to think feeders cannot be split. The important thing is to make sure that a split feed is at least 24%.

It's also not good to think that 1 middle school should be paired with 1 high school (unless the school system/population is small like CoD).

Cobb County and North Fulton, for example, have mostly split feeders. On average, 1.5-2 middle schools feed into 1 high school.

Examples...

Pope High receives roughly 40% of Dodgen and 100% of Hightower Trail.
Walton High receives roughly 60% of Dodgen and 100% of Dickerson.


It's important for CoA to think outside of the box.

One thing though...when making split feeds, the system has to make sure the splits are not "too small" for one group. It's bad for kids to be in a situation where 90% of the students go on to one school, and 10% go on to another (and this is still happening in parts of the metro area). At least 24% is a good base line.


Other stuff...
If the CoA was to annex a little more than Emory/Druid Hills, hopefully they would be also get Shamrock Middle and/or the old Briarcliff High (which could be than made into a middle school).
Then--
1. CoA could just form the Druid Hills High Cluster with Shamrock and/or Briarcliff serving as the feeder middle schools.
2. Small parts of the Grady district could be rezoned to Druid Hills to relieve overcrowding (or better yet, Mary Lin is rezoned for the Jackson Cluster).
3. The old Howard High is retrofitted to become a reliever middle school for Inman.


If the CoA was only able to annex Emory/Druid Hills, there are various options...
1. Mary Lin rezoned to Jackson Cluster.
2. Druid Hills High repurposed as a middle school.
3. Druid Hills High kept as high school. Howard High repurposed as a middle school. New middle school built for Druid Hills cluster. Howard Middle becomes a 100% feed to Grady...new middle school 100% feed to Druid Hills...and Inman Middle becomes a split feed.
4. We could go on and on...but it can be done/solved. No worries there.

Lakeside is trying to include Druid Hills MS (old Shamrock HS). It would be a real headache if they got the city and a separate school district in the future.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by Saintmarks

Chiming in (mainly) so this thread will show up in my feed and I can keep up with the goings on. This is my primary.... if not only source for information about this.

Aries and I have discussed this before, but as a youngster I used to take colored pencils and "incorporate" much of DeKalb on metro area maps. It always bothered me that these weren't cities when in actuality they were cities in every other definition of a city.

And one more time, I will add my voice of disapproval for the ridiculous name of Lakeside. Drieduppondside is more appropriate.

Sometimes the local "Patch" has articles. Hard to find anything on AJC. There is a hearing today that started at 3:30 with the latest maps. City of Lakeside proponents have interesting comments on the "compromise." Not sure who is making the deals. Doesn't really appear to be the Lakeside or Tucker proponents. The Dunwoody guy is now going to push both the Lakeside and Tucker bills this session with his "compromise" maps. Inner DeKalb will be left in the cold if it passes.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by JPD

Word on the street, hot off a meeting that just ended, is that Lakeside and Tucker cityhood bills are both dead for this year. Fran Millar says he won't be involved in any further Lakeside cityhood efforts. That's a good thing, imo, since his input (using voting districts to draw city boundaries) seemed to be the root cause of most of the contention between Tucker and Lakeside.

Thanks for the update.

I suspect he wanted allies for his Dunwoody separate school district plan and that is why he was pushing it when he didn't live in the area.

[lastminutemom]

Originally Posted by bu2

Thanks for the update.

I suspect he wanted allies for his Dunwoody separate school district plan and that is why he was pushing it when he didn't live in the area.

Millar represents about 8000 people in the potential City of Lakeside. Because he is the only Republican legislator in the area, he was asked to carry the bill. He did it as a favor for former state rep Levitas.

What I think caught him off guard, was the sudden interest in cityhood from Tucker folks and the about face about city hood from Rep Mary Margaret Oliver who represents much of the Druid Hills area. Tucker has repeatedly rejected cityhood efforts and I believe they were forced into it this time because of the potential loss of the Northlake Mall area.

I am not a Millar fan -- I think he thought he was doing a favor for a friend and he underestimated the complexity of it.

I still bet that there will be some of unincorporated DeKalb annexed into Atlanta, Clarkston, Decatur etc in the next 18 months or so.

[bu2]

Originally Posted by lastminutemom

Millar represents about 8000 people in the potential City of Lakeside. Because he is the only Republican legislator in the area, he was asked to carry the bill. He did it as a favor for former state rep Levitas.

What I think caught him off guard, was the sudden interest in cityhood from Tucker folks and the about face about city hood from Rep Mary Margaret Oliver who represents much of the Druid Hills area. Tucker has repeatedly rejected cityhood efforts and I believe they were forced into it this time because of the potential loss of the Northlake Mall area.

I am not a Millar fan -- I think he thought he was doing a favor for a friend and he underestimated the complexity of it.

I still bet that there will be some of unincorporated DeKalb annexed into Atlanta, Clarkston, Decatur etc in the next 18 months or so.

Decatur has some areas they are moving forward on, including Parkwood. Parkwood already has a bunch of individual lots partly in Decatur. It is on the Decatur side of the rr tracks and makes sense being in Decatur instead of unincorporated DeKalb or Briarcliff or whatever develops on the other side of the tracks.