St. Martins 50th anniversary with fun

St. Martin’s Episcopal School held its 50th anniversary kickoff event at school on Monday, Aug. 31. The day began with an assembly for all students and teachers in the gym. Headmaster Dr. James Hamner made a grand entrance on a motorcycle, then welcomed all students and introduced guest speaker The Rt. Rev. Keith Whitmore, assistant bishop of Atlanta. All students and teachers received 50th anniversary T-shirts and then enjoyed a great day of food and fun. Students rode carnival rides in the parking lot, played on inflatables on the soccer field, played games, and got their faces painted. Some even got temporary tattoos of the school mascot, the Warrior. Aerial artists and salsa dancers also performed for students in the gym.This event was the first of many this year to celebrate the school’s founding in 1959 and 50 outstanding years of providing education in Atlanta.

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Wesleyan wins second, readies for Holy Innocents'

Sickness seemed to hang like a cloud over Wesleyan’s campus last week, keeping dozens of students out of school and leaving the halls in a somber state. However, the school was given something to cheer about on Friday as the Wolves (2-0) avenged one of their two losses from last year with a 35-0 defeat of Darlington (0-2).

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New Dunwoody school lines?
Tuesday, September 8, 2009 10:48 AM EDT

By Bill Florence
For The Crier

Will Dunwoody schools have new attendance lines next fall?

The answer may be “yes” based on a countywide school reorganization plan announced last week by DeKalb School Superintendent Dr. Crawford Lewis and his staff at last week’s meeting of the Dunwoody-Chamblee Parents Council held at Dunwoody High School.

The plan, which Lewis said he will present to the DeKalb school board before year’s end so it can be implemented for the 2010 school year, will close low-enrollment elementary, middle, and high schools, requiring school attendance lines to be redrawn throughout the county.

While Lewis reassured the audience of parents and school administrators that no Dunwoody schools will be closing, Lewis and Chief Operations Officer Patricia Pope emphasized the proposed redistricting would affect schools in every part of DeKalb County.

The school system’s last attempt at redrawing school lines in Dunwoody during late 2007 and early 2008 was marked by controversy, confusion and contradiction.

School officials originally intended what is now the new fourth- and fifth grade only Dunwoody Elementary School to be a traditional kindergarten through fifth grade school to help relieve serious overcrowding issues in Dunwoody’s existing elementary schools. To create the new school’s attendance zones, Lewis and his staff drew new attendance lines for Vanderlyn, Austin, Chesnut and Kingsley elementary schools.

After the new lines were announced in September 2007, strong opposition from local parents forced school officials to revise their original proposed redistricting plan.

As community opposition over the new lines continued to increase, Lewis unexpectedly announced in April 2008 the school system was abandoning the redistricting plan in favor of a new plan to make the new Womack Road school a fourth- and fifth grade school for students drawn from Vanderlyn, Austin, and Chesnut elementary schools.

Lewis’s decision to close low-enrollment schools and to redraw attendance lines for the 2010 school year is a cost-saving measure as the 143-school DeKalb system continues to struggle with declining revenues received from local property taxes and from the state. Lewis said DeKalb actually loses millions of dollars in state funding each year due to the number of county schools being operated well below their lawful capacity.

But hoping for increased state funding may be futile. State Rep. Fran Millar (R-Dunwoody) warned the parents’ council audience that state budget cuts for schools throughout Georgia will continue when the General Assembly meets again in January to create the state’s next budget.

Among other items Lewis discussed at the parents council meeting:

  • Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) scores, a key component of the federally mandated No Child Left Behind law, improved at elementary and middle schools throughout the county, but saw less improvement at the high school level. Lewis said he was particularly pleased to announce that McNair Middle School in Decatur made AYP for the first time ever.

  • The school system will continue to operate a 180-day school calendar, but has prepared a list of potential non-school days that may be added to the calendar depending on state mandates or other external factors. Also, Lewis will make recommendations to the board of education in December to give each DeKalb school more flexibility in using block scheduling.

  • The much-anticipated launch of the county’s new student information system, eSIS, has had problems and is still not fully operational. Lewis admitted that the school system’s internal training program for eSIS had been poorly managed and timed, and that several school officials no longer had jobs as a result. The Parent Portal aspect of eSIS, a web-based tool giving parents online access to their child’s student information, is still expected to go live in October.

  • DeKalb continues to examine and look for ways to reduce spending. Lewis said the transportation efficiency plan is projected to save $4 million in 2010, a comprehensive restructuring plan may result in $26 million in savings, and a $3.3 million savings from central office attrition and a hiring freeze.

  • Lewis will ask the school board to give him sole authority to hire principals. He said the current process, which gives parents a strong role in selecting their school’s principal, often becomes a popularity-style contest for the parents, with the result that many schools end up with fair to poor leadership from the principal.

  • A new online service for parents will soon be available that Lewis said will contain a variety of important informational and educational resources for parents.

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