Druid Hills High: DeKalb evaluating 3 alternative sites for aging school

The three sites are all currently owned by the district, said Chief Operating Officer Erick Hofstetter: Druid Hills Middle School, DeKalb Arts Academy and the DeKalb School of the Arts. Each is about a 4-mile drive from the current high school campus.

Relocation would cost an estimated $200 million. The district could still move forward with the modernization at the current site, which could cost up to $100 million, and could possibly add capacity for up to 1,600 students there for an estimated $125 million. (The current enrollment is about 1,470 students, according to state data.) In addition to conceptual plans, the architect will conduct studies on infrastructure, utilities and traffic at each of the sites.

The site plans will serve as a comparison, not a commitment, Superintendent Devon Horton said.

“When you just think about students, that campus doesn’t offer the true high school experience,” he said. “Not to say that any option is closed … we just want to make sure we’re vetting the full spectrum.”

School district leaders have been discussing upgrades to the school for several years after students posted a video showing subpar conditions in some parts of the campus. Druid Hills High, which originally opened at the current Haywood Drive location in 1928 and was remodeled in the 1970s, sits on 11 acres. The average high school in the district sits on nearly 40 acres, which makes relocation an attractive real estate option. Homeowners in the area and a nearby church are not interested in selling, Hofstetter said.

But board members were hesitant to commit funds to an option they hadn’t agreed to.

“When did the board authorize you all to look for an additional location for a school?” asked board member Diijon DaCosta. “My idea was we were still looking at the actual modernization piece.”

Board member Tiffany Hogan had the same question: “I didn’t realize we moved from the current location to additional sites.”

Horton said the vote Monday night would have been the board’s opportunity to say “no” to an alternative location. He added that if the approved $50 million was enough to modernize the school, they would have done it.

The district already spent $350,000 for the same company, Manley Spangler Smith Architects — PBK Architects, to create a conceptual design for the modernization on the current site.

The new designs are expected to be ready over the summer, Hofstetter said.

The district intended to use sales tax money to fund the Druid Hills High construction, but will not have enough money in the current cycle, which ends in 2027, for it.

The board also gave the final nod of approval for the replacement of Cross Keys High School, after some concerns about funding. It will cost roughly another $100 million to finish replacing the Atlanta school, bringing the total to $148 million. The district will use extra sales tax funding to cover it. In 2022, the district’s comprehensive master plan estimated the Cross Keys High replacement would cost $75 million. The cost worried board member Whitney McGinniss.

“Something (else) has to be deprioritized,” she said Monday. “Something is not going to be funded for these projects to be able to move forward and we have not been open, honest and transparent with the public about what those projects are.”

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC

Horton said that getting any project done is a “challenging puzzle,” between the board setting its own priorities and construction costs risking.