*This post has been revised as of November 15, 2016 at 10:41PM*
This past Monday at the DeKalb Board of Education meeting, the planning department released its revised project list. Click here to view that presentation.
And as soon as we think that the communities in the northern part of DeKalb County are united, something else happens. (It’s just a week full of surprises, I guess…) Stan Jester (DeKalb Board of Education, Region 1) and Nancy Jester (DeKalb Board of Commissioners, Region 1) have recently come out with a renewed public effort supporting a new Doraville High School and critiquing a couple elements of SPLOST V.
You can read Stan Jester’s most recent piece here and Nancy Jester’s piece here.
Where Did the Cross Keys Elementary School Go?
In the SPLOST V proposed project list, as Nancy points out in her piece, the guaranteed SPLOST V dollars for a Doraville-area elementary does seem to have been “quietly removed from the plan.” In the presentation, it does say, however:
“Note: Additional Elementary School capacity (e.g. New Cross Keys ES – North, Additions at Jolly ES, Chesnut ES, and Rowland ES) needs identified under this master planning initiative are not included due to budget constraints. Further exploration of the public’s willingness to approve a referendum for a bond backed by property tax millage is recommended.” (see page 25 in above presentation)
I hope this means that the district is simply reallocating money from another part of the DeKalb County School District budget, since the Cross Keys community has been promised 2 new elementary schools as early as September 2015 (see this article from the AJC). I would hate to think that the school district is going back on its word.
Even as recently as October 17, Dr. Green and staff laid out a plan for a Doraville-area (or North DeKalb-area) elementary school to relieve overcrowding. This is what I received* from Doraville Mayor Donna Pittman regarding her meeting with Dr. Green:
*shared with permission from Mayor Pittman
What Do People Think About a Doraville High School?
I also would like to point out that while Cross Keys High School, Sequoyah Middle School, Dunwoody High School, Lakeside High School, and the Cross Keys Foundation all came out in support of Option B (a new, 2500 seat Cross Keys HS in Brookhaven and an expanded Dunwoody HS, Chamblee HS, and Lakeside HS), there are, according to Nancy and Stan, constituents who are very displeased with this option and are asking for DCSD to consider an Option A.
I personally have not heard this — except from a few individuals on the Brookhaven Redistricting Facebook group and comments on my blog and Stan’s blog.
I spoke with Doraville Mayor Pittman today (edited 11/15/2016) and she clarified that while she supports a Doraville High School at some point, she believes that Option B (with Doraville split between the Chamblee and Dunwoody clusters) is the best option.
I also want to point out that the online survey administered by DCSD pointed in favor of Option A for the first few weeks but during the last week of the administration period, the support for Option B exploded. I know that some of the renewed effort for Option A stems from the doubt that somehow the survey results were skewed in favor of Option B because of that late “burst” of support.
However, I attended the two meetings with the parents in the Cross Keys cluster, and at both meetings (roughly 200 people total) an overwhelming majority was in favor of an Option B.
I also sit on the school council at Cross Keys High School and the entire council (and everyone present) supported Option B. In conversations with other faculty, the overwhelming majority supported Option B. (When I say “overwhelming majority” I mean that literally no one at the high school has told me they support Option A — a Doraville HS.) Taking this into consideration — plus all the school council support letters in favor of Option B — it seems that the survey favoring Option B accurately reflects the “will of the people.”
As the board of education, the planning department, and the community as a whole try to digest the “new” information from the community, I want to make it clear that our CK community has been quite unequivocal in its support for a new Cross Keys HS (as presented in Option B). If someone would like to — as a group — come out and support a different option, I will be happy to publicize it. My main priority is to amplify the voices in our community and to ensure that our CK community has all of the relevant information.
If you have any additional comments or concerns, please feel free to share below or email them to rebekahcmorris@gmail.com and I’d be happy to publish on this blog. You can also email the board of education:
melvin_johnson@dekalbschoolsga.org
michael_erwin@dekalbschoolsga.org
marshall_orson@dekalbschoolsga.org
stan_jester@dekalbschoolsga.org
joyce_morley@dekalbschoolsga.org
jim_mcmahan@dekalbschoolsga.org
vickie_turner@dekalbschoolsga.org
Georgian Educator 
November 13, 2016 at 11:24 pm
I was at the Cross Keys community meeting, and the entire room voted for Option A, approximately 60 people. Zero votes for anything else, although the discussion was that Option B was the least preferred. This included CKHS, CCHS, and Ashford Park parents, primarily. So your anecdotal evidence is most definitely anecdotal. When I came out of the room, I had had friends in 3 other rooms, and those rooms voted Option A, as well. This process was never anything but window dressing for a decision that had already been made. At least one school board member has said CKHS Foundation members were quietly threatening lawsuits, so it was the CKHS choice or bust.
Since the county decided to split Cross Keys in half and ship it to two different high schools in Option B, I thought your blog should be addressing the recent removal of a CKHS teacher from the classroom for racist comments. During the public comments period for the various school options, your blog was very vocal in calling out CCHS as a racist school and that it had better get its act together as it receives more CKHS students, as the ones who were there didn’t feel very welcome. It seems you have quite the work to do within your own house before you post that another school is the racist one. Where is the equal coverage, Rebekah, or at least the non-hypocritical reporting? Or do you only cover these stories in an effort to slant public opinion toward the option that the CKHS Foundation wants?
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November 14, 2016 at 6:33 am
Amy hit the nail on the head when she wrote, “This process was never anything but window dressing for a decision that had already been made.”
The date on the pdf’s Stan posted showing the additions to the high schools was July 14, 2016. The administration knew which option was going to be chosen before they presented the options to the public. All of the public input meetings and surveys were just boxes to be checked to justify what they had already decided to do to address capacity in the Cross Keys cluster.
That said, I believe the district is looking to do a land swap with Brookhaven. The new high school does not have to be on Briarcliff Road. Dan Drake spoke to the Sagamore Hills parents last week and mentioned “revenue neutral site” at least five times. Is there an apartment complex on Buford Highway, south of Clairmont, that is for sale?
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November 14, 2016 at 7:05 am
Amy, there is no such thing as a “CKHS Foundation.” I’m assuming your share is about the “Cross Keys Foundation.”
Your Board member contact is misleading you at best and lying at worst re: “threatening lawsuit.”
This is personally disturbing because the Cross Keys Foundation has a chief advocate: me. I have run around for approaching a decade drumming up support for the BuHi area schools known as “Cross Keys.” Many that reviewed the situation instantly suggested legal action. The first time it happened I nearly had a heart attack – I was in a senior executive’s office suite and after 5 minutes that was his reaction: “…you should sue the bastards.”
From that day in 2009 to this day I have been actively and tirelessly working AGAINST those who have such an preference. Why? I think that suing DeKalb over the history that created the current cluster would actually hurt more than help.
In the end we’ll see if others were right and I’ve been a fool to play it straight.
Thank you for another chance to address this hateful and incorrect rumor. If you are worried about the integrity of the process (I take you at your word on that), please stop repeating the misinformation (lie?) you’ve been told.
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November 14, 2016 at 7:32 am
Amy, Regarding the CKHS meeting, I was there, too, and agree with you. The presence was dominated by a large and well organized group of MES and AP parents. This was not a surprise to me as I’m a stakeholder in AP and CCHS and understood the organized effort was coming. That is fine.
What is not fine is that some among the legions present were there to suppress other input. Specifically parents were aggressively putting down any support for Option B. In some ways the dialogue is a debate so I suppose that is fair.
I not only witness this in the event at large but specifically in the room in which I participated where I was shouted down by some of those present. Need to come facilitator efficiently declined to capture my input in support of option b thanks to the suppression by the very aggressive Chamblee parents. That is not fine.
I was livid.
Strangely and coincidentally Jim McMahan was in the back of the room and witnessed all of this. As we walked out of the room I turned to Jim and said, “…if they do this to a loud mouth jerk like me what are they doing to our CK parents?”
Sure, in a, shouting match option I may have one that night. On that you and I agree.
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November 14, 2016 at 7:50 am
That was, ” Sure, in a shouting match Option A may have “won” that night. “
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November 14, 2016 at 11:16 am
Support for Option B increased when a site near the current CKHS was proposed. If a site in District 1 isn’t possible, then I believe that would change people’s opinions. And I have only seen one proposal for a Doralville site (Assembly). That seems highly unlikely. I haven’t heard any other sites being presented. When actual plans hit, people become less supportive.
I think the actual order of preference is as follows:
Option B: at site near CKHS
Option A: anywhere in Doralville, no magnet
Option B: At Briarcliff.
Option A with site at Assembly and the magnet program there seems like a great option, but people don’t want that either.
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November 14, 2016 at 12:26 pm
Kim, I believe 100% that your primary goal in this entire effort was to serve CKHS at the expense of anyone and everyone else. Now that you got that, everything you wanted, and other areas are coming around to the utter stupidity of the plans being made for Lakeside, Dunwoody, and CCHS, you are going to be a target for criticism and blame. You are and will be a polarizing figure as long as you associate yourself primarily with one community. There was no shouting and no bullying in my room at all. We stepped through each option and reasonable critiques were given. The consensus is that a band aid was not going to cut it. Period. Option B is a band aid with terrible ripple effects on the schools that are being patched together.
The public was sold a bill of goods with this one. The decision was already made and the stupid ideas on how to actually implement it were already made, too.
I still haven’t seen Ms. Morris respond to how she plans to address the racism within her own school as she took plenty of liberty to bash CCHS without even contacting CCHS administration to see what actions had been taken. That blog and the after effects did more to inflame tensions between the two communities than anything else.
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November 14, 2016 at 3:36 pm
I don’t have a lot of time to write much right now, Amy, but I do want you to know you may be missing some of the key facts regarding how I dealt with the Chamblee Charter High School situation before posting on here.
Also, with regard to the racism issue at Cross Keys, the issue was presented last week and the CK administration and the district swiftly addressed the issue. No blog post was necessary to get people’s attention. And the press covered it without me having to say a word. I only put that information regarding cchs on my blog because our community did not feel like it was being heard.
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November 15, 2016 at 1:02 pm
I think you are a hypocrite. The news came out today that another teacher, a total of two, have been removed from CKHS classrooms because of racist remarks directed at students. This is news, especially when you made a name for yourself bashing CCHS for something similar, except it was student-to-student contact, not adults. I talked to the CCHS administration about your initial post, and you did zero reaching out to CCHS to determine what actions had been taken. You felt like writing something inflammatory to get more people at CKHS behind you by bashing someone else. It takes all of 5 minutes to write a post where you eat crow and admit that CCHS is not alone in dealing with racial issues, specifically that CKHS has its own house to clean before reaching out and yelling at other entire communities. Your unwillingness to be unbiased reveals you as the pot-stirrer, not the altruistic people-saver.
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November 16, 2016 at 8:09 am
Amy,
The Cross Keys administration and the county administration acted swiftly and removed these two teachers from the classroom immediately. That’s been well documented in the news. Also, we had an emergency faculty meeting last Friday where the issue was addressed. I haven’t seen what Chamblee has done to address the racism from *some* of their students. You seem to be a fierce supporter of Chamblee which leads me to think you are super knowledgeable about the happenings of the school. Perhaps you can comment on how Chamblee is trying to address its own racism?
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November 18, 2016 at 12:05 am
Well, let’s see. The student incidents you blogged about had already been addressed by the time your blog came out. DCSD central office is aware of both the content and timing of your blog post and your unwillingness to get the CCHS point of view and how it has made tensions worse between schools that will most likely eventually blend.
Since those events and additionally since recent political stress, CCHS communicated the following via email and phone, in English and Spanish, multiple times. It would have taken you less time than it took you to write your slanderous blog post to get this information yourself and maybe even learn something from the professional, open, take-charge attitude of the CCHS leadership.
Going forward at Chamblee, we will utilize these events as teachable moments for our staff and our students. We will continue to foster a positive school climate and culture in the following ways:
a. Next semester we launch a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League to provide anti-bias and tolerance education for all Chamblee students and staff in a variety of ways. This partnership will include launching Chamblee’s new No Place For Hate local chapter.
b. For the rest of this week (and beyond if need be) any student who seeks a safe space to dialogue with our counselors about how to process and respond to feelings about recent political discourse, student to student relationships, interactions with staff members, reporting inappropriate comments/harassment/bullying, matters that impact school unity, can come to the cafeteria during 1st and 2nd period with no questions asked to meet with our counselors. After 2nd period, students can report to the counseling office for the same reasons.
c. We discussed with our staff ways to effectively support students in the classroom to navigate recent political discourse and how to support students to tolerably understand their own differences while remaining politically neutral in those discussions.
d. During October 2016: we hosted grade level assemblies to reinforce the messages of anti-bullying, on-line safety, and tolerance and acceptance of all members of the Chamblee family. We hosted our first Mix It Up Day, our first Chamblee Unity Day, and during Red Ribbon Week we celebrated students making positive choices, respecting themselves and each other.
e. We will continue to follow up on and address all credible reports to our administrative team of students making inappropriate comments, using racially insensitive language, bullying, making threats, engaging in harassment, etc. We take these matters very seriously.
f. Our school’s Positive Mental Health Steering Committee will continue to meet quarterly to guide our school’s practices around matters that may directly impact students’ and staff’s positive mental health and emotional well-being. Our Positive Mental Health Steering Committee consists of student leaders, teacher leaders, community leaders, faith leaders, mental health practitioners, and parent leaders associated with Chamblee Charter High School. We began meeting last school year.
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November 18, 2016 at 8:27 am
Do you think people should know what is happening with regard to those incidents? Or do you think that should have been kept quiet? And slander is a false statement that ruins one’s reputation. I made no false statements, and no people’s names were identified. I am really sorry you are so upset, but if you would like, I’m happy to sit down and talk with you. I think that would be more productive than this. Plus, I don’t even know who you are. Would you be willing to meet?
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November 18, 2016 at 8:29 am
If you want to keep responding with such venom at me, I think you should consider at least letting people know who you are. You might also want to consider emailing me, since it seems your problem is with me, and not much else.
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November 14, 2016 at 6:21 pm
Amy, which “one community” are you accusing me of being an advocate for? Brookhaven? Chamblee? Doraville? None of those? I am completely committed to seeing the best opportunities for kids from all three cities. Is there some other community you think I’m neglecting or don’t prioritize?
Happy to be “polarizing” if standing in testimony in the open in a candid way is causing me to be viewed that way. Badge of courage, then.
What happened to your primary assertion against me and my “law suit?” Please stop with the imaginative attacks. They don’t hold water.
I presume good intent on your part and concern for public education or you wouldn’t be here. What possible other reason would I be here?
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November 14, 2016 at 7:01 pm
The moms living on Buford Highway made a wise decision to name the new ES John R. Lewis ES. Otherwise, that would have gotten taken away as well. I hope we all agree that #1 priority should be getting classroom seats added in District 1, you know, the district with the overcrowding issue.
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November 16, 2016 at 5:10 pm
I’ll give Donna P credit, at least she’s saying something. Dunwoody mayor/council are silent on the expansion of schools in Dunwoody. I recall, somewhere, hearing the Doraville mayor talking about how unfair it was Doraville didn’t have its own high school. She made great points. One thing she said was how Doraville students had a tough time participating in before/after school activities due to transportation. She spoke about the pride a new school would bring her community. Wonder why the sudden change. In DeKalb, anything is possible. Mayor P, why the change? Your community doesn’t deserve a high school anymore? Inquiring minds want to know. Why the flip after meeting with DeKalb School officials? Something promised?
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November 16, 2016 at 7:03 pm
While we are speculating (it’s fun!) I’ll propose a more positive and less cynical idea. Perhaps the Mayor is aware that CCHS is 1.4 miles from Doraville Assembly and has been her community’s desired attendance area HS school for a decade or more.
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November 16, 2016 at 9:29 pm
I am calling “Georgia Educator” on her staunchly political agenda here and her misstatements. Read this from Stan Jester’s blog. Ms. Morris is not being truthful here. http://factchecker.stanjester.com/2016/11/6873/
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November 16, 2016 at 10:21 pm
Not sure I understand what you’re saying about my political agenda (what would that be?), but that WABE interview was from September 2015.
Mayor Pittman would love a Doraville HS at some point but she continues to emphasize that now is not the time. I say this with certainty, as I have just gotten off the phone with her this evening. I also have worked closely with Mayor Pittman since 2 years ago when I joined the Doraville School Task Force, so I feel like I have a good idea where she’s coming from.
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