Parents Weigh In On Cherokee High School Overcrowding, Solutions

CANTON, GA -- Alexandra Stark immigrated to the United States from Brazil 10 years ago due to "violence." Stark said the people in her homeland usually "go in the opposite direction" when something goes wrong, rarely getting involved to help others unless that person is a neighbor or loved one. When she enrolled her children at Canton Elementary School, she learned what it means to be part of a community and the impact that bond has on a school or neighborhood.

At the Cherokee County School Board's Nov. 16 public input session on overcrowding at Cherokee High School, Stark pleaded with the elected officials to keep Canton Elementary's community together when it comes time to take action on overcrowding at the county's oldest high school.

"I found that community," she said when she came to the United States, adding she always felt like a fish out of water in her home country. "I found that I belonged to a place."

The school board is weighing three options that would have an immediate impact on the student population at Cherokee High School:

• Expanding the high school to include the neighboring Canton ES STEM Academy campus; Canton ES STEM Academy students would be consolidated into Knox Elementary and R.M. Moore Elementary schools, with STEM programs added to both of those campuses and R.M. Moore retaining Title I services (while Knox will not see enough of a demographic shift to qualify as Title I, students in need will continue to receive extra services).
• Expanding Cherokee to include Canton ES STEM Academy; Canton ES STEM Academy students would move to the ACE Academy campus, the 30-year-old former Teasley Middle School building on Knox Bridge Highway); ACE Academy students move to the former Tippens Elementary School, a 30-plus-year-old building on Glenwood Street in Canton, which will need significant renovations before that move can occur).
• Splitting Cherokee High School, with ninth-graders moving to the ACE Academy campus and ACE Academy students relocating to the former Tippens building.

The board is also considering one additional request from parents: expanding Cherokee High School into Canton and moving Canton Elementary students into the existing ACE Academy. ACE Academy would share Canton Elementary with Cherokee High School, according to this scenario. Another plan floated by parents -- expanding Cherokee into Canton, moving Canton students to ACE, relocating ACE students to Clayton Elementary School and merging Clayton students with Waleska's R.M. Moore Elementary -- were not considered by the system due to "insurmountable geographic challenges and expansion of community schools impacted," Superintendent Dr. Brian Hightower said.

The need to address the question of Cherokee High School's overcrowding has been on the horizon for years. While CCSD has only seen an increase of about 50 students for the 2017-18 school year, "infrastructure continues to be severely taxed in several areas," such as the hallways, cafeteria and limited on-site parking. Hightower added. The school, which opened in 1956, was only designed to accommodate less than 2,000 students, but is now home to 2,650 pupils.

Dr. Hightower added that 15 months ago during the board's preparation to call for the fall 2016 renewal of its Education Purpose Special Purpose Local Option Sales tax, staff members reviewed projected enrollment increases and what could be done to accommodate any much-needed improvements. Unfortunately, the debt repayment limitations "have us looking for construction funds for a high school building during the 2022 Ed-SPLOST rather than the 2016 referendum," he added.

So, they began refining their plans to include actions that can be taken in the near future and as part of this process, the district has laid out to the community a lot of information about student enrollment, financial challenges and explanations about the system's construction history, the superintendent continued.

For Canton lawyer Jonathan Kessler, the problem of Cherokee High School's overcrowding has been a longstanding issue in the community, as the growth in the area has been substantial and long predicted. Kessler has two children who attend Canton Elementary School, an institution that he said has "far exceeded" the expectations of his family. There's no doubt that the current footprint can not handle the existing student population, and Cherokee High School was constructed on property that's now landlocked. For the last 25 years, CCSD has placed a Band-Aid on a problem instead of solving the root cause of the illness. Now it's time for the board to "visionary" and roll out long-term solutions that won't involve disrupting the Canton Elementary School community, Kessler said.

Andy Slanina, a father and business owner, said he would support moving Cherokee High School into the Canton Elementary building, as the school's current population is just too large for students to have equal opportunities to succeed. Housing continues to be constructed in the north and west part of Cherokee County and if trends holds steady, the school district will be forced to build another high school to accommodate the student growth.

“This problem wasn’t created overnight and won’t be solved overnight,” he added.

Donnamarie Alcott, who had one child graduate from Cherokee High School and has another enrolled as a junior, said she felt the only logical option for the district is to go with the first option, which calls for expanding Cherokee into Canton Elementary and moving those students into Knox and R.M. Moore. Choosing that option, she added, would allow for a singular campus for Cherokee students and keeps the freshman class in one building. It would also address lunchroom overcrowding and also provides a tremendous growth opportunity for Knox and R.M. Moore elementary schools, as they would be students that have made Canton Elementary School a state-recognized institution.

Later at the board's regular meeting, Dr. Hightower reminded the board that district staff are considering a number of questions while weighing which solution would be best suited for CCSD, such as whether they tackle overcrowding as early as 2018-19, does it keep solutions within the Cherokee Innovation zone, does it minimize the relocation of students as well as specialty programs, utilize existing housing in the district's inventory and does it maintain "fiscal responsibility relative to any facility renovations?"

Each proposal is also reviewed under specific guidelines, some of which are geographical barriers, diversity, seamless transition, use of logical bus routes, least disruption to educational programming and feeder patterns and maintaining neighborhood school concepts.

The Cherokee County School Board will review all public comments and is expected to make a final decision at its Dec. 14 meeting.

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