New School on Howard School Campus
8/27/07 Letter from Atlanta Board of Education rep Cecily Harsh-Kinnane regarding redistricting2/7/08 Minutes from the SRT3 Meeting between APS, Mary Lin, & Morningside re: New School
Atlanta Public Schools (APS) purchased property in 2007 to build a new school to relieve the overcrowding at Morningside Elementary. The plan was that the site would serve as a Kindergarten Campus for the 2007-08 and 2008-09 school years, while a new school is constructed on the site. The planning capacity for the New School is 450 students and is scheduled to open in August 2009, for the 2009-2010 school year.
The New School will be located at 1246 and 1274 Ponce de Leon Avenue, on the block between Briarcliff Road and Springdale Road. The property is the former site of the Howard School and includes two main buildings: 1) the historic east building, the Hirsch Building, (used in 2007-08 and 2008-09 as the MES Kindergarten Campus), and 2) the historic west building, the Rutland Building (which currently has a more modern brick addition on its eastern side).
The construction plans are being finalized. It is certain that both of the existing historic buildings will remain, but the more recent brick addition (on the east side of the Rutland Building) will be demolished. A large addition will be constructed behind the Rutland Building.
APS has made no decisions about rezoning. APS planned to make its initial recommendation by late April/early May 2008. After a March 24th meeting, they decided to move the date to mid-August 2008 in order to allow more time for community input and provide the APS Geo-coding extra time to analyze properly the populations this school will support. APS typically has community meetings after it prepares an initial proposal for changes to an attendance zone. APS indicates that since the New School is located in the Lin zone, rezoning should have a minimal impact on Lin. However, no decision has been made about where zone lines will be drawn.
In the past, APS has allowed for some form of grandfathering of existing students. Lin representatives of PTA and LSC have asked for grandfathering to be considered for rising 5th graders. The extent of grandfathering, if any, has not been decided by APS at this time.