What Should Go Here?: East Lake Elementary School

By some accounts, it was a given that East Lake Elementary would close in the massive rezoning of Atlanta Public Schools.

What East Lake residents feared most is if their neighborhood school were to close, that it wouldn't become a decaying shell of its former self and magnet for crime.

On Tuesday, the APS Board of Education voted on a final plan that closes seven schools, including East Lake Elementary.

The plan, which will be implemented at the start of 2012-13 academic year, calls for East Lake students to attend Toomer Elementary in neighboring Kirkwood.

The East Lake campus itself will be used in that academic year as the temporary home for Coan Middle School students. Coan is being vacated for students from Jackson High School, which is about to undergo a $40 million facelift.

And after that?

"The school repurposing committee is convening today regarding these matters," APS spokesman Keith Bromery told East Atlanta Patch. "There is no dedicated e-mail address established as of yet to receive input regarding this effort. Other than the desire to repurpose these schools as soon as possible, there is no established timetable for doing so."

East Lake Elementary itself is the result of a repurposing. The school, opened in 1920, had previously served as the DeKalb County Courthouse.

APS hasn't had a stellar track record in some neighborhoods when it comes to closed school buildings. The old David T. Howard High School and Walden Middle School in Old Fourth Ward, both have been closed for decades.

How should it be reporposed for the good of East Lake? What's your vision for this vacancy?