Cabbagetown Takes a Position with Atlanta Public Schools!

Cabbagetown requests to be zoned for Parkside Elementary and strongly supports the Parkside – Coan – Jackson feeder pattern.

Following is the official position of the Cabbagetown neighborhood on APS redistricting Options A and B. The Cabbagetown Neighborhood Improvement Association (CNIA) approved this position at a meeting on February 7, 2012.

We thank you for your consideration and attention to our thoughts, concerns, and ideas.

• Cabbagetown is among the most underserved of all APS neighborhoods, when considering current zoning and isolation from options. Existing geographic boundaries for public schools and charter school alternatives have left Cabbagetown without viable choices to fulfill the goals of APS, or satisfactory learning opportunities for our children.

• Cabbagetown has strong historical ties, real geographical connections, & viable community relationships with neighborhoods to the South (Grant Park, Ormewood Park).

• Cabbagetown can be an asset to APS. We are a small neighborhood, but one that is active in and committed to our community. We can help APS achieve its goal of improving public school options in SE Atlanta, and helping the Jackson cluster realize its full potential. But we need a viable elementary school option in order to do that.

• Cabbagetown strongly supports the formation of a true feeder system in Southeast Atlanta to Maynard H. Jackson High School. We support “Option C” being proposed by the Southeast Atlanta Communities for Schools group (SEACS).

Cabbagetown proposes the following:

ELEMENTARY SCHOOL LEVEL
Cabbagetown zoned for Parkside Elementary

MIDDLE SCHOOL LEVEL
Cabbagetown zoned for Coan Middle School

HIGH SCHOOL LEVEL
Cabbagetown zoned for Maynard H. Jackson High School

Why Parkside Elementary?

With well-planned economic diversity, we believe the wonderful facility at Parkside boasts great opportunities.
• While many transportation lines in the City run from East to West, social and cultural lines run North to South. We are opposed to being pushed away from our community bonds, and prefer to see Cabbagetown redistricted to the South.
• Cabbagetown hosts a campus of the Grant Park Cooperative Pre-school in our community center, so our children are already beginning their academic lives together, and this would allow for continuity throughout and a significantly stronger PTA presence.
• Parkside Elementary is closer to Cabbagetown than Cook, Hope Hill, or Whitefoord. Although I-20 is a major interstate, current infrastructure makes it relatively easy to cross, including the Glenwood-Memorial Connector, Boulevard, and Cherokee Ave. Traveling across I-20 via these routes is preferable to traveling a further distance westward on Memorial Drive, traveling north on Boulevard, or crossing Moreland Ave. to Whitefoord.
• Cabbagetown is a young community, with over 20 children aged 3 or less, and future growth depends upon good school choices.
• Cabbagetown is a small, but extremely active community, with demonstrated success in neighborhood fundraising events (for instance, the Chomp & Stomp Festival, which was named “Best Intown Festival” for its grassroots appeal); as well as in neighborhood-wide service projects. The residents of Cabbagetown would be an asset to the long-term improvement of the Jackson cluster.
• Providing the Cabbagetown community with schools that work will benefit APS. We’re a community of active, involved neighbors whose commitment and energy are currently being focused on alternatives outside of APS – charter schools, private schools, or homeschooling. A viable public school option would allow Cabbagetown families to channel that commitment, support, and enthusiasm back into the Atlanta Public School system. With support from larger neighborhoods, like Grant Park and Ormewood Park, we feel capable of providing generous parental involvement in all aspects of Parkside.

Why Not Cook/Hope Hill or Whitefoord?

Cook Elementary, Hope Hill Elementary, and Whitefoord Elementary are consistently underperforming schools and do not provide viable public education options for our children.
• Not a single Cabbagetown child currently attends our zoned elementary school, Cook.
• No neighborhood families plan on sending their children there because Cook consistently underperforms by all measures.
• Combining two underperforming schools (Cook and Hope Hill) without making extensive changes to the feeder populations will only exacerbate the performance issues.
• Although Cabbagetown has demonstrated community involvement, we are too few in number to affect substantial change at an underperforming school that is, by all indications, trending downward.
• We routinely lose good families and fail to attract new families because of the lack of viable public education options.

The general consensus of the neighborhood is that neither of the proposed redistricting options fulfills the educational needs of our children, and fails on many levels to serve our community.

Middle & High School

Cabbagetown supports the model of success that brought Grady High School into its current form. This includes having a strong feeder concept that retains continuity from elementary through high school, and that inspires confidence in our ability to send our children to strong public schools. Cabbagetown supports retaining our strong ties with Grant Park and Ormewood Park by sending our children from Parkside Elementary to Coan Middle and on to Jackson High.

Magnet programs, such as the International Baccalaureate at Jackson High, are a great beginning. We commend APS on bold initiatives to strengthen this location.

Summary

Cabbagetown has a proven track record of fundraising, volunteerism, and community involvement. Now, we are asking for an opportunity to invest that energy in APS. Cabbagetown wants to invest in APS. In a debate where the loudest voices are those clinging desperately to the status quo, we are asking for change. We are asking for the opportunity to attend Parkside Elementary, Coan Middle, and Jackson High, not because they are already high-performing schools, but because we see potential in the Jackson cluster in Southeast Atlanta, and we believe we can make a difference.

We thank Senator Orrock, Council Member Archibong, Superintendent Davis, Board Member Muhammad, and the Board of Atlanta Public Schools for their time and consideration in listening to the views of our small but strong neighborhood.