Redistricting is often a hot button issue, but in Alpharetta residents of three neighborhoods have taken to the streets to voice their complaints.
Parents and students from Coventry, Gatewood and Rhodes Plantation staged a protest over a proposed redistricting plan which would separate their children and send some of them to Manning Oaks Elementary. According to Coventry resident Thomas Bose, about 100 people showed up for the symbolic walk along the half mile stretch of sidewalk from their neighborhoods to Cogburn Woods Elementary.
“We had a really big crowd — it was amazing,” said Bose. “With the protest we wanted to show our solidarity. There’s no good reason for any of our neighborhoods to leave the district, it doesn’t help anybody.”
With one more redistricting meeting left Dec. 10 for the new school on Birmingham Highway in Milton, Bose said more demonstrations may be in the works. Of the Fulton County Planning Department’s three alternative school district plans, Bose said Plan A is the “worst.”
The plan would split up the three neighborhoods and would send children from Coventry and Gatewood to Manning Oaks, a distance Bose said was about five miles away, leaving Rhodes Plantation at Cogburn Woods, which is about half a mile by sidewalk from all three neighborhoods.
“The plan would send kids on buses through three or four neighborhoods with four-way stops and use more fuel and cost more,” said Bose. “And it doesn’t even meet the county’s own criteria of geographic proximity, traffic, neighborhood groupings and numbers — mathematically it’s not an issue.”
Bose said he and the other residents of the three neighborhoods prefer Plan B, which would keep their children at Cogburn Woods and have the least disruption for students.
Susan Hale, Fulton County Schools spokeswoman, said reactions may be strong because the first parents just saw the first redistricting maps at the Nov. 13 meeting. She said 800 people attended the meeting and the planning department is still working through all the comments and are looking for common themes in order to make changes to the redistricted boundaries.
“We are still in the middle in the process and I encourage people to come to the Dec. 10 meeting and stay involved in the process and show support for their school,” said Ms. Hale. “In other counties when they do rezoning they only hear from two or three parents but we’re hearing from 800 because we have a different process here. It’s great that so many people are involved.”
Ms. Hale said the final redistricting plans would be presented to the Fulton County School Board in January and would be voted on in February. She said she would encourage parents to contact their school board members and voice their opinions.
The third redistricting meeting for the new elementary school on Birmingham Highway in Milton is Dec. 10 from 7 to 9 p.m. at Milton Center, 86 School Drive in Alpharetta.
Information: visit www.fultonschools.org/redistricting
Labels: Alpharetta, Fulton County, fulton county schools, Georgia, milton, Redistricting, Roswell
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Brian Vanderhoff @ 12:22 PM
