Wanted: A new kindergarten location for Morningside Elementary School for next school year.
The Atlanta Board of Education on Monday unanimously approved a revised rezoning plan to start to relieve overcrowding among schools that are feeders for Grady High School. The board authorized superintendent Meria Carstarphen to negotiate for a building to house Morningside kindergartners, after parents criticized an earlier, draft proposal to move school attendance boundaries so that addresses in the Cheshire Bridge and Armour Drive corridors shift to the North Atlanta High School feeder pattern.
In response to the outcry, the board approved a scaled-back plan that places Armour Drive area in the North Atlanta cluster, where students will attend E. Rivers Elementary instead of Morningside. The approved plan also moves under-construction but yet-to-be occupied property at 1989 Cheshire Bridge Road to the North Atlanta cluster, but allows already developed portions of Cheshire Bridge to remain zoned for the Grady cluster as district officials work to find a Morningside annex building by March.
“I need an annex site for the school that will relieve some of the overcrowding. We hope that an appropriate annex will become available. If we are unsuccessful, it is important to understand that we just are still going to have to take additional steps. I don’t know what those steps are going to be,” Carstarphen told the audience Monday, which included area parents who promised to work with APS on long-range planning.
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