Category Archives: Dunwoody High School

Pros and Cons of adding 600 seats to Dunwoody HS

Posted on January 7, 2017 by | 56 comments

In October, as the DeKalb School District offered up three options to address capacity needs in North DeKalb, the administration met with school councils and had a few meetings around the county. At the time,the administration estimated that, if Option B was selected, $23 million would be spent at Dunwoody High School (DHS) and add an additional 600 seats.

If Option A was selected, SPLOST V money spent in North DeKalb would go towards building a Doraville High School. Once completed, some students would be redistricted out of DHS to a new Doraville High School. Keep in mind, the current attendance zone for Dunwoody High School includes all of the city of Dunwoody, plus one elementary school with an attendance area almost entirely in Doraville.

The DHS school council chair communicated to me that the council wanted to see money spent at DHS. He shared that the council envisioned renovations to existing media rooms, art rooms, locker rooms, band room, choir room, gymnasium, fields and other common areas, in addition to the 600 seats.

Shortly after the DHS school council sent in their letter supporting a modified Option B, including the 600 seat building addition, the administration reduced the amount of money to be spent at DHS from $23 million to $16 million. Subsequent to reducing the funding, the administration then released the conceptual plans which included no renovations and very little additions to common spaces. I can only assume the timing was intentional as they had the conceptual plans since July.


Stan Jester

Moving forward, I’m trying to understand the support for the building addition.
The speculation that some Dunwoody residents would be redistricted out of DHS seems to be the only reason for any continued support of the building additions.

Will the addition of 600 seats (300ish students) or redistricting 600 students out of DHS make things better or worse for the school and the community?

600 Seat Addition District Out 600 Students
Cafeteria Area Worse Better
Kitchen Neutral Neutral
Parking Worse Better
Media Center Neutral Better
Gymnasium Worse Better
Field Space Worse Better
Field Conditions Neutral Neutral
Band Room Space Worse Better
Choral Room Space Neutral Neutral
Hallways Space Worse Better

Supporting Documentation
.pdf link icon October 2016 FTE Enrollment Report, by school, by grade
• Dunwoody HS – 600 Seat Addition – Conceptual Plans
.pdf link icon GA DOE Guideline for Square Footage Requirements for Educational Facilities 160-5-4-.16 (a)
.pdf link icon 2017-2022 E-SPLOST Project List

Joshua Williams

Joshua Williams
DeKalb County Chief Operating Officer

“The capacity additions will provide the needed classroom space plus any increase in core spaces (kitchen, cafeteria, gym, and media center) or parking that are needed to serve the larger school size based upon District and GA DOE standards.”
Joshua Williams has made it perfectly clear the school district will do the bare minimum to meet district policy and state standards.

Cafeteria Area
The 600 seat addition will include a cafeteria extension of 485 sq/ft. A 485 sq/ft extension to the cafeteria to accommodate a 600 seat addition makes no sense. Redistricting 600 students out of DHS leaves the students with more cafeteria space per student.
Kitchen
The 2017-2022 E-SPLOST Project List includes $17,000 for new kitchen equipment whether DHS gets the addition or not. The Kitchen extension of 1,731 sq/ft is enough to accommodate the building addition. Redistricting students out of DHS would also help by reducing the necessary kitchen capacity.
Parking
Parking is already atrocious at DHS due to the overcrowding. Along with the building addition, the district recommends paving over the retention pond to add 160 parking spaces. A building addition of 600 seats, 300 more students and untold staff means less parking per student. Redistricting 600 students means more parking per student.
Media Center
GA DOE requirements spell out the Media Center requirements. The new 2,020 sq/ft media center addition keeps pace with the building addition. Redistricting 600 students means more media center space per student.
Gymnasium
The DHS school council chair, Chad Griffith, spoke at length about the capacity issues with the DHS gymnasium. The building additions will do absolutely nothing to address the gym capacity issues and will only make a difficult issue worse. Redistricting 600 students means more gymnasium per student and fewer issues.
Field Space
The building additions does not include a land purchase, and will thus result in less field space per student. Redistricting 600 students means more field space per student.
Field Conditions
The 2017-2022 E-SPLOST Project List includes $.79 million for field improvements. This will happen whether DHS gets an addition or not.
Band Room Space
The band room is a dungeon. From what I can tell, they converted the basement to a room where they put the band. The building additions projects does nothing to address the dungeon. Redistricting 600 students out of DHS will result in more band room per student.
Choral Room
DHS current has no home for the choir. Neither the additional seats nor redistricting students will address that.
Hallways
GA DOE Guideline for Square Footage Requirements says that small schools must have corridors 8ft wide and large schools must have corridors 12ft wide. There is no formula to calculate the recommended width of corridors for mega schools, so DHS is on its own if it adds 600 seats. The hallways would become more crowded. Reducing the population at DHS would help with the overburdened areas like hallways.

Chamblee Charter High governance team has also expressed their opposition to the school district’s plan to add seats to their school. Lakeside High School Council has not made any official statements, but is slated to get 750 new seats They both face similar issues as Dunwoody High School. I plan to blog soon on their issues.

Note: Of the 7 board of education districts that contain 24 high schools, district 1 only contains 2 high schools. District 1 is underserved by high schools.

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Posted in Chamblee High School, Dunwoody High School, Lakeside High School

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Update: Multiple Schools Now Requesting Defer on E-SPLOST Vote

Posted on December 2, 2016 by | 22 comments

Dunwood, Chamblee, and Lakeside cluster school councils have now sent letters requesting a deferral on the E-SPLOST V project list.

July 2016
Conceptual plans were created for adding more classrooms to Chamblee Charter HS, Dunwoody HS, Lakeside HS and Peachtree Charter MS.
August
School councils were asked if they would like 1) classroom additions and renovations or 2) have the student population reduced via a new Doraville cluster.
September
Many school councils, like Dunwoody HS, requested the renovations and the 600 seat classroom addition saying they are “really embarrassed by some of the facilities at DHS”.
October
During the time DeKalb was asking parents and school councils to weigh in on how e-SPLOST should be spent, they released specific dollar amounts that each school would receive for its addition and renovation. After parents and school councils gave their opinion, the administration reduced the budgets by as much as 35% for additions and renovations at Lakeside HS, Chamblee HS, Dunwoody HS and Peachtree Charter MS.
November
The administration released the conceptual plans that were created in July for the additions/renovations. None of the plans include substantial improvements in common space.

December
Dunwoody, Chamblee and Lakeside cluster school councils ask for a delay on the vote for Category II of the E-SPLOST Project List until the actual projects are better defined to avoid any confusion and misunderstandings about what the building renovations and additions entail.
If these common spaces are not addressed, in the case of Dunwoody High School, the community will end up with 600 more seats but little in the way of common space improvements for the students they already have, let alone the additional seats. The same thing appears to be true for Chamblee and Lakeside. The bottom line: more seats and less common space per student. That is not acceptable.
Request for 60 Day Deferral Vote on SPLOST V Funding 
From: Dunwoody High School Council
Date: December 2, 2016

DeKalb County School Board and Leadership,
This letter requests that the BOE defer a final vote on SPLOST V funding for a period of 60 days. Despite being an overcrowded school in need of relief as soon as possible, we feel it is critically important to ensure that SPLOST money addresses critical and long-standing needs at DHS, and the information provided to date is not sufficient to ensure this will happen. This is what we would like to see accomplished in a deferral period:
1. Further information on the exclusion of gym capacity in our addition as well as a reconsideration of this exclusion.
2. Further clarification on specific items that will be included within an addition at DHS. We would like to work out specific classroom types that will be included in our addition.
DHS’s last major SPLOST project, while very beneficial to the school, did leave off an Arts wing that many had thought was to be part of the project, despite the project being completed under budget. We would like to avoid this type of confusion this time.
3. We would like to go over all proposed addition square footages and associated calculations that went into those. As it relates to GA DOE state criteria for common spaces, we see it as prudent to incorporate a safety factor to allow for the continued growth that is likely to happen throughout DCSD beyond 2022 to avoid the types of challenges overcrowded schools like DHS currently face. The current information does not provide any specifics on the approach to get to the expansions included within the plan.
Sincerely,
Dunwoody High School Council

E-SPLOST Project List Vote Deferrals and Position Updates

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Posted in Chamblee High School, Dunwoody High School, Lakeside High School