Parents push back on Fulton County School’s redistricting plan for Spalding Drive

Riverwood High School’s cafeteria filled with parents on Monday night, upset about plans to close Spalding Drive Elementary and send their children to neighboring schools.

Fulton County Schools (FCS) held the first of three community redistricting meetings on creating new attendance lines. Declining enrollment figures and the condition of Spalding Drive were cited for the closure recommendation .

FCS staff outlined the redistricting process before starting small-group input sessions. Maps with attendance zone proposals will be presented at the second redistricting community meeting on Nov. 4 at Riverwood High. Staff will use parents’ comments as they create the proposals.

Spalding Drive parent Will Parkman told Rough Draft the first question FCS staff posed during breakout sessions to parents focused on additional factors about Spalding’s potential closure.

The parents in his group pointed out that the school district does not consider academic performance in its closure recommendations. Parents said they believe that is crucial to Spalding’s success.

Parkman said parents emphasized that the smaller school size allows for better teacher-student interaction, benefiting children with special needs or neurodivergent traits.

Parents consider traffic concerns a significant issue, with potential rezoning affecting commute patterns and increasing pressure on already congested roads, Parkman said.

Bus routes would force students to cross over busy roads, like Roswell Road and Abernathy/Johnson Ferry, according to a statement released the Spalding Drive PTO. Redistricting would increase the number of students traveling through the Dalrymple-Roswell Road intersection, which parents said is a high-density, high-accident location.

Additional bus routes would strain the school district’s existing bus driver shortage, the release said.

High Point Elementary parent Dhaval Desai told Rough Draft that parents with children who attend other elementary schools took part in the meeting because redistricting would negatively affect their school communities.

Desai wants FCS to increase the number of pre-K classes. He said High Point has six kindergarten classes but only two pre-K classes.

“Ultimately, I think Fulton County is also moving faster than they should,” Desai said.

If Spalding Drive’s enrollment continues to be an issue, Desai said the school could become a STEM-based school, a dual immersion school, or a problem-based learning school. That could attract different learners and families that could feed into the magnet programs at North Springs and Riverwood high schools.

Students are just now recovering from the effects of COVID and further disruption would be a setback, Desai said.

The press release from the Spalding PTO said approximately 40 percent of families will send their children to private schools if the school closes, affecting future enrollment at the new North Springs High.

On Tuesday morning, Spalding Drive parent Stephen Bell told Rough Draft that information from FCS is now requiring an open records request.

“We do have open records requests filed, and the county has said it will be six to eight weeks before any documents or responses will be produced,” Bell said.

He said it’s infuriating that the redistricting process takes 90 days but the FCS bureaucracy will take 60 days to respond to open records requests.

Rough Draft has reached out to the FCS Communications Department for a response.

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