Round 3 of CCSD South Cobb Redistricting Begins

The Cobb County School District has moved into Round 3 of its elementary school redistricting process for South Cobb. CCSD has unveiled a new map that is an amalgamation of on the redistricting website and at informational meetings for the affected communities.

“We’ve incorporated all the feedback we got on the wall and in the Phase 1 and 2 meetings,” said Doug Goodwin, CCSD communications specialist.

According to the most recent proposal,

Additionally, , currently serving kindergarten and first grade students, and Austell Intermediate, currently serving second through fifth grade students, would be reorganized into two traditional elementary schools serving kindergarten through fifth grade students.

In the new draft plan, South Cobb is divided into two implementation phases. Phase 1 would take effect Aug. 2012, while Phase 2 would take affect in Aug. 2013 at the time the construction was completed on the new Smyrna Elementary School and the Nickajack Elementary School addition.

CCSD representatives will present the Round 3 draft plan at a combined meeting for community members from both implementation phases at , 1920 Clay Road in Austell, at 6:30 p.m. Wed. Dec. 7.

Goodwin explained that the Round 3 draft plan may change depending on the feedback received from the community in the coming weeks. Once this feedback has been taken into account, CCSD representatives will present a finalized plan to the Cobb County School Board in February.

Community members are encouraged to provide their feedback by sending an email to redistricting@cobbk12.org. Feedback can also be left at the Cobb Schools redistricting site, where district officials have set up a public commenting wall, similar to a Facebook wall.

Some of the recent comments include:

Patricia Maya-Salem | Clarkdale
We live in the C4 area ( Cureton Woods - Austell) and for the past two years have been waiting for the brand new Clarkdale Elementary school to be completed. I have a child currently in 1st grade and a second child joining Kindergarten next year. My kids have been waiting as much as everyone else for their brand new school. We drive by every week to check on the progress of the school and comment on what has been done. It would be unfair at this point to take this away from my kids and the kids in this subdivision. I understand that a little over 40 children would be affected by this change, which in a way makes this change unnecessary. I don’t believe that 40 children will make any difference, more so at this stage that Clarkdale has enough space to take these kids. We, at Clarkdale, are family. We have gone through similar experiences since September 2009 and thus deserve to stay together. Our teachers, school staff and students see themselves as “one”. Please don’t break them at this point.

Much better plan | Nickajack
Plan C is much better than Plan A. Plan C addresses the following issues, which dominated the previous board discussions: 1) keeps families in the school that is within walking distance, e.g., King Valley and Keeneland Farms at King Springs; 2) alleviates Title I concern for Nickajack. Solving these problems should trump the capacity issues raised by the previous poster. Note that Teasley's overcrowdedness will be addressed after the current redistricting process, as the CCSD strongly alluded to in the last public forum. And King Springs' 78 students overcapacity is not significant enough to abandon plan C for the two reasons above. The previous poster has some nerve to suggest that Nickajack should have more students because it is 33 students undercapacity when Nickajack faces significant logistical problems having 1000+ students already, no matter the number of additional classrooms.

Keep Clarkdale Together | Clarkdale
Please consider keeping all of the Clarkdale families together. These families and students have been through so many transitions and have shown flexibility over the past two years. The excitement of being able to be together in a new school has made the sacrifices that have been made worth it, but now there is a possibility that some of these students will not attend the new school. Clarkdale has more than enough room to accomodate the few neighborhoods that have been redistricted to Austell. Please consider keeping all of the Clarkdale students together.