Students and Parents Plead to Keep Sky View Open at CCSD Redistricting Hearing

Sky View Elementary School student Canady Ratliff broke into tears Tuesday night as she pleaded that her school remain open.

“How can we find our classes?” she said. “I want a place for my teachers.”Canady was one of several current students who spoke during a public hearing at Pebblebrook High School on Sky View Elementary is one of two schools scheduled to be closed

Amy Gomez said she doesn’t want to leave her small elementary school.

“Bigger isn’t always better,” she said. “I’m really enjoying Sky View, and I’m really sad that I’m going to have to move to Mableton Elementary.”

The majority of those in attendance at the public forum were in support of keeping Sky View open. According to the redistricting plans, Sky View will be closed and those students will attend the new , which is under construction and slated to open next fall. The other school scheduled to close is Brown Elementary in Smyrna.

student Shaquer Stevens attended the meeting to support his alma mater, Sky View. He spent time after the meeting studying the maps that were on display in the lobby of the Cobb County Center for Excellence in Performing Arts at Pebblebrook.

“That’s our community,” he said of the recommendation to close the elementary school.

Erin Stack, president of the Sky View Elementary School Council, said that the school offers English and parenting classes for adults, and also provides backpacks of food over the weekend for children who don’t have food at home.

“This is something that can’t happen at a larger school,” Stack said. “You can’t do for 900 what you can do for 400.”

Other states are going back to the smaller school model, Stack said.

“There is a lot that can happen in a smaller school that can’t happen in a bigger school,” she said.

And, if the school system does end up closing the school, Stack said that staff and administrators should move along with the students.

“They need to be with the people who care for them,” she said. “They need to be represented by the people who care for them.”

Antonio Eubanks, who serves on Sky View’s school council, asked members of the Board of Education if the meeting was truly a forum or just a way to appease parents. The fact that a new Mableton Elementary is being built means the school board already has made up its mind regarding the school closures, Eubanks said.

“How can you keep Sky View open if you’re spending money to (build) a new school?” he said.

Sky View was the school that all of Helen Stephens’ foster and adopted children attended. Her children were in special education, and she said she was concerned about what would happen to Sky View’s special ed population.

“I have a little guy who’s been in school since he was 3, and he didn’t learn anything,” Stephens said. “Now, he’s in Sky View and, I tell you, they have given him time, patience and love. He’s beginning to learn. I love his teachers, and he loves his teachers. Sky View to me is the place for any special ed child.”

Phase 1 of the redistricting process, which affects only elementary schools in Mableton and Austell with the exception of Russell Elementary (in Smyrna), includes combining the student populations of Mableton and Sky View Elementary Schools; combining –which saw its students split between Compton Elementary and Austell Intermediate schools when its building flooded in 2009, relieving the populations at and Hollydale Elementaries and relieving the population at Clay Elementary by reassigning students to either Riverside Primary and Intermediate or Bryant Elementary.

A third school, Milford Elementary, had been marked to closed, but Doug Shepard, CCSD's chief SPLOST administrative officer, said the available capacity at nearby schools was inadequate and new attendance zones reduced the boundaries to the west side of Austell Road, improving safety.

“Our students should not have to cross Austell Road during rush hour to attend school,” Shepard said.

In addition to building the new Mableton Elementary, the school system also is replacing Clarkdale and Smyrna Elementaries and adding eight classrooms to Nickajack Elementary. Plans also are to reorganize Austell Primary and Intermediate Schools by turning both into K-5 schools, a move that Shepard said is expected to save the school system more than $100,000 due to reduced transportation costs.

This is Round 2 of Phase 1. Round 3, the presentation of a single draft plan,is slated for November and December, and Round 4, which is when the school closure hearing will be held and the recommended redistricting plan will be presented to the board, is scheduled for January 2012. The school board is expected to vote on the plan in February.

“It’s still early in the process, as we will continue to go through two more rounds,” Shepard said. “In many ways, this is the start of a conversation.”

The two maps being considered are available on the school system’s website. Parents can submit feedback on a comment form on the website, through email or by posting on the public wall on the school system’s website.

A hearing on Phase 2 of the redistricting plan, which affects schools in the Smyrna area, is scheduled for tonight at 6:30 at Campbell High School.