Education Editorial Page
Trailer
City at Sandtown Middle School
UPDATE: All Sandtown
trailers were removed in the Summer of 2007 due to the new South Fulton
Middle School!!
Last August I sent the
attached email to the Fulton School Board
about trailers in a new school after one year. At the time the issue was
five doublewide trailers in the second school year of a brand new school.
Drive by the school for a
reality check on how the Fulton County School Board is dealing with their
ineptness in planning for the obvious growth in
South Fulton. Thanks
to under-forecasting, construction moratoriums, financial audits, fraud
investigations, outsourcing transition and board apathy about school needs in
South Fulton there are now fourteen doublewide trailers filling the entire
leftmost parking area in front of the school. This is in the third
school year!!
Here is some dated history
on
how we got here.
I have heard there are discussions about solutions, but thus far
there is no commitment financial or otherwise from the school board. Until
there is real commitment to solutions, I will not share "more promises"
Here is what
you can do about it!
Photograph courtesy of
James Reese
This 2005 aerial picture
above shows the parking lot at
Sandtown Middle School before the first
onslaught of trailers.
The entire area to the right with the red line around it represents the area
now occupied by 14 trailers (9 new ones just installed).
Your Homework assignment:
Email
the Superintendent and the school board
board@fultonschools.org and
ASK THEM:
1.
Where the 140+ staff members will park now
that there are less than 65 parking spaces. Where will parents park?
2.
Why with 28 classrooms (14 doublewide
trailers) in the parking lot they are not adding any surveillance cameras or a
third school police officer. When someone is assaulted out of sight behind a
trailer will they do something then? Remember Columbine?
3.
Where they are in addressing emergency
access to a school with one road in and out with at least 1,800+ projected
this fall.
4.
How do they plan to feed 400-500 additional
students when with 1,500 lunch has to start at 10:30 AM? The Fire
Department’s maximum capacity for the cafeteria is
421. Do the math 2000/421….. see
the amount of time lunch takes place versus education instruction time.
5.
Ask them whether the new Jones Hall Middle
School is on schedule to provide overcrowding relief and when… 2007, 2008?
6.
Ask them whether they will re-consider
redistricting without a new school opening as they did with Autry Mill in
North Fulton. The school board projects
955 at Camp Creek MS this fall and
1,832 at Sandtown MS – does this
make sense?
7.
Ask them if they are revising their
enrollment projections upward in light of the recent discovery by the tax
assessors that growth in South Fulton was underestimated adding $34 million to
the county’s budget.
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