Stan Jester
DeKalb County
Board Of Education
Results are in, the majority of entries selected the Split Feeder Option (Option B). There are a few noteworthy points:
- At a quick glance I see that the last couple days the survey was open many people submitted 5 – 10+ entries right in a row.
- 92% of the entries came from 22% of the high schools.
- Most of the votes came from the Dunwoody Cluster (perhaps because the middle and high school sent out numerous newsletters the last couple days encouraging people to vote for Option B)
- The Dunwoody School Council recommends the “Split Feeder Option”, however they are requesting an additional $17 million so they don’t get a split feeder.
- Only 4.5% of the respondents want to move the Chamblee Magnet
Number of Daily Responses
Please select the high school zone where you reside
| Chamblee Charter HS | 1806 | 30.1% |
| Cedar Grove HS | 17 | 0.3% |
| Clarkston HS | 104 | 1.7% |
| Columbia HS | 13 | 0.2% |
| Cross Keys HS | 867 | 14.4% |
| Druid Hills HS | 149 | 2.5% |
| Dunwoody HS | 1948 | 32.5% |
| Lakeside HS | 915 | 15.2% |
| Lithonia HS | 13 | 0.2% |
| Miller Grove HS | 11 | 0.2% |
| McNair HS | 8 | 0.1% |
| M.L. King HS | 26 | 0.4% |
| Redan HS | 10 | 0.2% |
| Southwest DeKalb HS | 17 | 0.3% |
| Stephenson HS | 14 | 0.2% |
| Stone Mountain HS | 3 | 0% |
| Towers HS | 4 | 0.1% |
| Tucker HS | 77 | 1.3% |
Please select any of the following that describe you as a DeKalb County School District stakeholder
| Elementary School Parent | 2921 | 49.9% |
| Middle School Parent | 1725 | 29.5% |
| High School Parent | 1464 | 25% |
| Student | 590 | 10.1% |
| Teacher | 259 | 4.4% |
| Administrator or Classified employee | 62 | 1.1% |
| Other community member (non-parent, non-employee) | 831 | 14.2% |
Based on prior community input and guiding principles, three options to address overcrowding of middle and high schools throughout the District have been presented. Which option do you prefer? (If needed, option details are below)
| Option A – Add New Sequoyah Area Cluster | 2667 | 44.8% |
| Option B – Split Feeders | 3014 | 50.7% |
| Option C – New Sequoyah Cluster + Relocate Magnets | 268 | 4.5% |
“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
Dunwoody Cluster Position touts fiscal responsibility for the SPLIT FEEDER option saying “Option B is $7,000,000 under budget”, then goes on to say they want an additional $17 million so they don’t have to be part of the split feeder solution. What a bunch of hypocrites. The split feeder is good for everybody else, but not for them.
I must have received at least 6 emails from various school newsletters in the Dunwoody Cluster telling me to vote for Option B.
Split feeders are not good in the long run.. Lakeside had that until just a few years ago. It tends to split neighbors , friends, and neighborhood activities that many children participate in. Schools were built in DeKalb to emphasize community. Split feeders take that away. Ask many of the people that were in split feeders at Sgamore elementary schools just a few short years ago.
These are the survey results, but will the consulting company be taking into account the comments and additional proposals? I think many understand that it is difficult to get one-to-one feeder patterns in Dekalb due to the way we developed. However, whenever possible, community cohesion must be considered. As well as proximity to the closest high school and logical boundaries. Let’s hope all of this is considered as this train moves down the tracks.
Anyone who’s been around the block a few times knows that what happens in these early Input stages usually bears only passing resemblance to endgame. Charrettes, listening tours, attendance line surveys… just because Option B pulled ahead at the end doesn’t mean Option B as currently written will be the solution. As a matter of fact, it’s almost assured that it won’t. Now comes the behind-the-scenes work of the tenacious few who dedicate so much time to advocacy. We should all be grateful to them – whether the final solution is to everyone’s liking or not, it will most assuredly be more thoughtful than what DCSD puts out during early rounds of these actions.
Option B only had more votes because people were voting over and over again. The clear choice until the last day was Option A. Count me in as a Dunwoody parent that supports Option A. I do not prefer split feeders, and the modified Option B proposal from the Dunwoody cluster is entirely hypocritical. It asks others in the county to bear the burden of split feeders but for Dunwoody to be held together. That is unfair and directly contradicts the county’s requirement that any split feeder solution affect everyone.
Option A, however, is the best long-term solution because it adds the most seats and accommodates for future growth in Doraville area. Option B is an expensive Band-Aid which will have to be revisited again soon.
Two noteworthy points from this blog post:
1) At a quick glance I see that the last couple days the survey was open many people submitted 5 – 10+ entries right in a row.
2) Most of the votes came from the Dunwoody Cluster (perhaps because the middle and high school sent out numerous newsletters the last couple days encouraging people to vote for Option B)
This is why Option B pulled ahead in the final two days of the survey, and it wasn’t because so many people who received the numerous newsletters were voting, although I’m sure some were. But, the Dunwoody folks were intentionally running up the survey tallies for B at the end using multiple votes. I watched the Dunwoody/Option B tallies running up on Friday, literally by the minute on my computer screen multiple times. Shaking my head.
There is one particular individual who represents Cross Keys who has a definitive agenda and was even promoting voting for Option B buy purchase Facebook advertising. This voting is a farce. Nothing more. Option A had well over 65% until the rigging began.
Come on, Illegitimate, just name me for heaven’s sake. I’m proud of our community effort to drive responses. It was an outstanding result to see nearly as many responses from CK community as from Lakeside community. In the end, the results were driven by Dunwoody and Chamblee cluster responses.
Perhaps you would prefer fewer but for me it is always better to hear from more rather than fewer stakeholders. I wouldn’t worry too much about the survey. It’s not American Idol and there’s no winner. If people were trying to “game” it, I feel sorry for them as I don’t think that had a material impact. It reflects what I have picked up on in my personal network and that is that folks are very split on the solution options just as this result shows and as I heard at every public forum.
So tar me if you like – I’m glad engagement is so high and the result is basically 50/50 when you consider a vote for C is really a vote for A.
I would add, Illegitimate, that the 65% “before rigging” was when there were less than 800 responses. There were over 6,000 by end of survey. Numbers being what they are there was no suspicious or black magic involved. CK stakeholders made our push a couple of days before the survey ended and only dented the ratio by 8-10% or so. The largest number of responses were driven by the publishing of school council positions from Dunwoody and Lakeside just as the first 500-700 were driven by the Chamblee Cluster call to action on day one. Making a fuss over the opinion survey percentages is really much ado about nothing and will not be decisive in any way in what is actually implemented. What will matter is what is gleaned from the comments online and from the stakeholder and public meetings.
I think 4.5% for Option C is a clear message.
I think that running up Option B with a caveat is completely misleading. Ultimately, when the county looks at the votes, will the county look at”Option B, but keep Dunwoody intact”? Or will they see, “Oh, the majority wants split feeders?”