Dunwoody High School and Lakeside High School have some of the smallest gyms in the school district. How can we in good conscious pack our schools with students without providing them the proper facilities?
The building additions will ONLY include classroom, media center, kitchen, cafeteria and parking additions. Why does the school council at DHS welcome this? Dunwoody HS and Lakeside HS gyms can’t handle the number of students we have now.
One of the coaches at DHS characterized the current situation at the Kingsley meeting saying Dunwoody HS, with 2000+ students, is given the same resources as all the other high schools with less than 1000 students. We don’t have enough space for anything and what we do have is getting worn down much faster than the current maintenance cycle is providing for.
GYM FLOOR SPACE BY HIGH SCHOOL
| GYM FLOOR SPACE | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| High School | Region | Gym Floor in SF | Enrollment | Capacity |
| Lakeside HS | 2 | 10355 | 2111 | 1796 |
| McNair, Ronald E. HS | 7 | 10545 | 658 | 1594 |
| Druid Hills HS | 2 | 10584 | 1324 | 1405 |
| Cross Keys HS | 1 | 10647 | 1479 | 1286 |
| Miller Grove HS | 5 | 10700 | 1319 | 1830 |
| Dunwoody HS | 1 | 10944 | 2095 | 1509 |
| Tucker HS | 2 | 10961 | 1769 | 1747 |
| Towers HS | 6 | 11100 | 832 | 1299 |
| Columbia HS | 6 | 11200 | 961 | 1430 |
| Clarkston HS | 4 | 11286 | 1398 | 1209 |
| Southwest DeKalb HS | 5 | 11330 | 1175 | 1825 |
| Cedar Grove HS | 7 | 12084 | 1116 | 1247 |
| Arabia Mountain HS | 3 | 12768 | 1339 | 1582 |
| Chamblee HS | 1 | 13078 | 1722 | 1723 |
| Lithonia HS | 3 | 13098 | 1360 | 1416 |
| Stephenson HS | 3 | 13800 | 1438 | 2040 |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. HS | 5 | 14600 | 1535 | 2037 |
| Redan HS | 3 | 19153 | 998 | 1677 |
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Seriously??? Lakeside has the HIGHEST enrollment with the LEAST amount of gym space. Assuming this is going to be true for all the shared spaces: cafeteria, library, restrooms, outdoor, etc. Geesh.
It appears that the study left out some criteria for consideration. If not, more space would have been allocated.
I hope that an appeal for more space will be considered; making more space for these students.
The current situation is UNFAIR to the students.
Thank you,
How in the world did we end up with so many schools in the southern part of the county with hundreds of extra seats in capacity and those in the northern section at or over capacity? Quite a few schools have hundreds of extra seats. Are they all going through the cycles of maturity where all the kids have grown up now?
Did Redan HS build an extra gym somewhere?
How is it even possible to have schools with 600 empty seats? Much less over 900 empty seats? Is that right? What are the projections for all the schools going forward? Is there a table showing enrollment by grade for every feeder ES and MS in each HS district? I’d like to see that as a rolling projection of capacity requirements, and see how that meshes with the planned school expansion timing. Has such a thing been done? Once you get the batch of kindergartners entered you should be able to track your needs over the next 12 years on a continuing basis.
@AmyParker,
The powers that be have been hoping E-SPLOST will solve many of the problems in South DeKalb. I’ve dubbed E-SPLOST IV as “If you build it, they will come” SPLOST. Basically the school district was hoping by building big beautiful schools, people would come back. There were perfectly good schools at %40 capacity that we built new schools for.
Empty Seats – Hah … it’s worse than you think. Enrollment is different than attendance. Some schools have up to a 40% truancy rate. On any given day, only half the students even show up. McNair only has 300-400 students at school on any given day.
I’m not sure how anybody can think adding 1,000 seats to DHS is a good idea.
Wow – I guess Chamblee’s living the dream of having SO much space. I mean, it’s shoehorned into a plot of land that’s some of the smallest of any HS in the county. It can’t have pep rallies in its gym with all the students because it would violate the fire code. But nice job Stan by picking out one instance. How about we look at recreation space as a whole.
What about OUTSIDE space? What about a recent call from some “concerned” Dunwoody parents that Chamblee was using the football field and that “wasn’t fair” because it was striped? Doesn’t Dunwoody already have a full field to practice on? Now, thanks to those concerned parents, Chamblee has to practice seven teams on a field too small for a full soccer game. All when there’s a stadium sitting unused behind it.
How about instead of singling out poor Lakeside or poor Dunwoody, we present a unified effort that all three schools have lunch rooms and band rooms and gyms that are too small for the CURRENT population? How about all three schools fight the insanity coming from the central office, instead of our board member mainly worrying about the school his kid goes to.
The current floor space of the gym will accommodate the required seating and an addition for the stage will be added to the south side of the small gym. The first floor of the old 1923 building housed an auditorium. This space in the new plan will be converted into a new band room. This will create a performing arts wing that houses art, choir, and band all in one area. The second floor of the old high school will remain classrooms and will be completely renovated. A new elevator will be installed to make the space completely ADA compliant.
For what school? I’ve never seen those plans. Where can I get a copy of these plans you are talking about?
@AreUkiddingME?,
You wrote that a Dunwoody parent complained about Chamblee teams using North DeKalb Stadium for practice because the NDS turf field is lined (duh), and now Chamblee teams are banned from using that field.
Can that be true? Can you give more details?
CCHS has a tiny practice field that is less than 70,000 square feet. That is the ONLY practice space for all CCHS spring teams. CCHS doesn’t even have a track for track and field practice.
Dunwoody, like all other DCSD high schools, has a 95,000+ square foot practice field that includes a full sized track and practice space for field events.
So the options for CCHS spring athletic practice are very limited, and nonexistent for track and field athletes. NDS is booked almost every single school day, so even if CCHS gets some practice time there it’s very limited.
I think it’s a given that DCSD hasn’t done a good job in providing athletic facilities for its teams, especially for the big schools that DCSD intends to make even bigger.
It’s sad that these schools can’t band together and advocate for appropriate facilities.
Instead, apparently Dunwoody folks want to pick on a school that has even less than they do. This ranks high on the “let’s be petty” scale.
Say it ain’t so!
@Anonymous they are correct. CCHS cannot practice at North DeKalb, even though the county includes North Dekalb in the acreage for the school when it comes to CCHS new addition. #itsucks!
Neither high school has much field space. I believe both high schools are sharing North DeKalb stadium when it is not being used.
It seems the outside spaces of our high schools are in danger of extinction, especially since the campuses are small to begin with. To slap a band-aid on the problem of overcrowding, DeKalb seems intent on taking every available inch for additions and trailers.
Overcrowding is the reason for DeKalb’s ‘campus land grab’. Stan, how can we possibly convince DeKalb to build a new high school in Region One?
If a new high school is not possible, is redistricting the only option? How else can the under-capacity high schools be utilized? Is it really a choice between redistricting or watching DeKalb continue its transition of outside space into additions and trailers?
It’s shameful that our DeKalb students don’t have adequate facilities for PE classes that are required to graduate or for student athletes who invest time, energy, and money to develop their athletic skills and compete for their schools. Booster clubs are forced to fundraise to rent practice spaces off campus, while DCSD rents their stadium to a third-party club team to practice. Shame on DCSD athletics! Drake claims that the LHS CAC has the option of requesting an auxiliary gym, but nobody at LHS (PAC, CAC, PTSA, Athletics Department or Administration) had ever been informed of that option. Pants on Fire!
An auxiliary gym WHERE? Over the swamp on stilts?
In Chamblee, the school district is going to build a parking garage and put practice fields on top.