Patch Poll: What Is Best Solution for Sutton Overcrowding?

With the passage of the APS' SPLOST IV last week, $88.3 million is to come into Buckhead to relieve school overcrowding.

The plan for the 1-cent sales tax calls for renovations at and elementaries, construction of a new Buckhead elementary school and paying off bonds for the first five years to build the new

One of the biggest issues facing the Buckhead schools, not directly addressed in the SPLOST, is solving overcrowding at , Buckhead's only middle school. That overcrowding led to the construction of the new high school, which would have been completed whether or not the SPLOST passed.

As Morris Brandon parent Stuart Sheldon told APS Superintendent Erroll Davis in a public meeting before the SPLOST vote, APS officials last spring told parents that creation of a separate sixth grade academy at the present Sutton building and placing seventh and eighth graders at the present North Atlanta building appeared the best solution to Sutton's overcrowding.

But Davis said he had no knowledge of the plan to create the new sixth grade academy at Sutton. Davis said that the APS had made no decisions on any Northside issues, pending the results of a demographics study, whose completion has been delayed several times.

Buckhead Council of Neighborhoods education liaison Leslie Churchill told the group last week that because of the APS cheating scandal and the process of removing APS from accreditation probation "the administration has not thought about recommendations for our cluster."

Churchill said that several middle school possibilities are now open, including placing one middle school at the present North Atlanta building, which, she pointed out, would have capacity for around 1,500 students. That could result in the present Sutton building being used for the new Buckhead elementary school.

With these possibilities, Buckhead Patch is conducting a poll on what you think is the best solution for the community's middle school. Along with your participation in the poll, your comments would be welcome.

See Monday's Buckhead Patch for a separate poll on ideas for Buckhead's new elementary school.