We have no desire to affect the Atlanta Public Schools’ tax base and believe the APS Board of Education would be better off supporting our legislation to keep the new Buckhead City within the district.
The prospect of APS refusing more than $300 million from Buckhead taxes and fees of its overall $1.4 billion annual budget is unrealistic. Your own reporting has shown, “only 37% of APS students in third through eighth grade scored at proficient levels in reading on the 2019 Georgia Milestones tests. In math, it was 35%.” According to SchoolDigger, APS is ranked 153rd out of the 193 school systems in Georgia. Those abysmal numbers, and the number of troubled APS schools, recently forced the board to adopt an urgent improvement plan. Buckhead’s property tax base would certainly help to fund those much-needed reforms.
While Georgia law makes clear that APS expands with the City of Atlanta, it is silent on what happens when the city limits contract. The law does not say that APS shall have the same boundaries as the city. Regardless, we are confident the Buckhead City legislation will provide that APS will continue to serve Buckhead families.
We look forward to working with APS to do all we can to get those scores up. Instead of attempting to interfere with Buckhead’s 70,000 citizens’ absolute right to vote on its own destiny, we hope APS will focus all its attention, resources, and capabilities on the singular and much more important goal of providing higher quality education for our beloved children. Buckhead City looks forward to partnering with APS to achieve that goal.
