HR 486 Will Empower Low Income Communities

GLASS (Georgians for Local Area School Systems)
PRESS – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Highest Poverty Schools Neglected in Large DeKalb County School System
Atlanta, GA, February 22, 2014: Sunday, February 23rd at 3:00pm GLASS (Georgians for Local Area School Systems) will hold a press conference at Cross Keys High School in Brookhaven to address HR 486 and how it can help low-income communities receive the focus they need to be successful.
HR 486, the proposed amendment to the Georgia constitution to allow for the formation of municipal school systems, will hit the House floor next week. GLASS is advocating for passage asserting that it will help all communities in Georgia that want to increase their focus on public education.
Opposition to the Resolution has claimed that HR 486 is meant only to serve privileged communities. Cross Keys High School, located at 1626 North Druid Hills Road NE, Brookhaven, GA 30319, serves families in Chamblee, Doraville, and Brookhaven. Among neighboring attendance areas, Cross Keys’ schools have received the lowest level of capital investment under DeKalb governance being outpaced by neighboring areas by as much as 3-to-1 in dollars spent.
The attendance area of Cross Keys, stretching 10 miles along Buford Hwy, serves nearly 7,000 children. It includes Woodward Elementary in the City of Brookhaven, which at Title I rate of 99.5% (a federal measure of poverty) is the poorest elementary school in DeKalb County School District.
These high minority and high poverty schools have their needs lost in the shuffle of DeKalb politics and bureaucracy. The high school is the only one in DeKalb without an auditorium, features a crumbling, thirty year-old asphalt track and lacks many of the basic amenities found at neighboring schools. While the cities that serve Cross Keys have passed resolutions supporting HR 486, because of partisan politics, HR 486 may not pass the House and these schools will continue disparate treatment by DeKalb County School District.
GLASS invites all media outlets to learn more about Cross Keys, its struggles to meet its students needs under a disinterested school system, and how HR 486 would allow Cross Keys area children to reach their highest potential.
In attendance will be Representative Tom Taylor (author of HR 486), Brookhaven Council Members Joe Gebbia and Bates Mattison, Cross Keys Foundation President Kim Gokce, GLASS Board Members, and Cross Keys community members. Pending invitation response from: Rep. Mike Jacobs, Rep. Edward Lyndsey, Rep. Scott Holcomb, Senator Fran Millar, and former Chamblee City Council Member Brian Bates.