North Fulton School Redistricting

The public input process for the upcoming North Fulton school redistricting is almost over.  You have until midnight tomorrow (12/14/14) to submit your comments to the county.  With any school redistricting, there are going to be some PO'd people and I'm one of them.  Unfortunately, our nation has a public school system that is anything other than free market and democratic.  If you live in a certain spot, your children are going to a certain school regardless of whether that makes the best sense for the end consumer, end of story.  

The new elementary school on hwy 9 has created some pretty big shifts in Roswell at the elementary and middle school levels.  High schools in Roswell are largely unchanged.  However, there are some notable shifts that will happen with elementary and middle schools on the west side of Roswell.  Proposed maps for elementary and middle are below. (click on the image for the full map).  Black lines show existing boundaries and colors show the proposed boundaries.

You will notice that the new school pulls from Roswell North and Mimosa primarily which was to be expected.  I live in Liberty which is next door to the new school so there was no getting away from the fact that my elementary school kids would be going to the new school.  What I didn't expect was to get pulled away from Crabapple Middle in the process.  As the crow flies, Crabapple is right at a mile from our house and our new middle school, Elkins Point, is right at 2.5 miles. 

Neither route would be particularly walkable or bikeable for my kids but the Elkins Point route takes us across two main arteries (HBR and Mansell) causing a significant increase in time by either car or bus.  I can plainly see that Fulton County is trying to keep the feeder system as clean as possible but I really don't know how in Historic Roswell has any meaningful affiliation with Mountain Park when it comes to middle school aged children.  But, alas, we are in suburbia where playdates are planned and parents chauffeur kids from one end of the city to the other by car to

Keep supporting our car dependence for everything Fulton County.  My solution.. build smaller neighborhood focused schools from elementary through high school rather than the standardized education factories we have now.  Who knows, maybe another redistricting will occur before my kids are in middle school.  One can dream... I'll have plenty of time when I driving to our new middle school.