Atlanta school board considers making Inman building an elementary school

The former Inman Middle School, located in the heart of the Virginia-Highland neighborhood, is serving as a temporary home for Morningside Elementary School students. The Morningside Elementary building on East Rock Springs Road is getting a more than $17 million overhaul. Work is expected to be completed this summer. (Courtesy Atlanta Public Schools)

The Atlanta Board of Education will consider Superintendent Lisa Herring’s proposal to convert the former Inman Middle School into a new elementary school located in the Virginia-Highland neighborhood.

Officials say the new K-5 school would alleviate overcrowding at other schools and also provide space for families moving to booming Midtown.

The board is expected to take the first vote on the proposal at its May 2 meeting; the second and final vote is set for June 6.

Herring’s proposal to adapt the former middle school into a new elementary school is based in large part on the one submitted to Atlanta Public Schools just over a week ago by Sizemore Group. Sizemore was hired by APS in 2019 to spearhead the creation of a facilities master plan. APS posted Herring’s and Sizemore’s proposals on its website and also emailed the superintendent’s tweaked version to families on April 25.

“While the consultation recommendations succeed in addressing school capacity challenges by leveraging under-utilized schools, we understand this process is larger than operational concerns (“sticks and bricks”),” Herring said in her report.

“Our engagement provided a deeper understanding of the impact these decisions have on each school, neighborhood, family and student,” she said. “In developing these APS recommendations, we focused on our shared values of excellence, equity and engagement.”

The map for a new Inman Elementary School shows the number of students being transferred to different schools. (APS)

School overcrowding has plagued many of north Atlanta schools for years. DeKalb County and Fulton County schools are dealing with similar issues, including old buildings in disrepair.

A new school can bring joy to a community as property values rise and commute times are shortened. But a new school also can create tensions between parents and neighborhoods. Making room for a new school means shuffling school boundaries and the possibility of students no longer being eligible to attend the only school they’ve known.

The process never makes anyone happy, said Atlanta School Board member Michelle Olympiadis. Olympiadis lives in Morningside and represents the Midtown Cluster, which includes Hope-Hill, Mary Lin, Morningside, and Springdale Park (also known as SPARK) elementary schools. Also included are Midtown High School and Howard Middle School in Old Fourth Ward, where Inman Middle School students now attend.

There has been a lot of community engagement about the future of the Inman building, but parents are looking at the latest scenario just one week before the vote, Olympiadis said. The overcrowding situation at Midtown area schools is dire and is projected to get worse in the next few years. Making more space available for learning needs happen as soon as possible, she said.

“We’re at a point where we’ve got to do something in the Midtown area,” she said. “I’m not opposed to any scenario that the administration has put forth to the community thus far, but I just don’t feel as though the communities had a real opportunity to authentically engage.”

Shannon Gaggero of Virginia-Highland, the mom of a Springdale Park first-grader, said she was “shocked” when she learned Herring was recommending the new elementary school. That option could erase the years of hard work families and faculty put into the school to make it successful.

“We have about 750 students at Springdale Park right now and about 500 of those students will be completely rezoned to a new elementary school,” she said.

“It’s shocking for APS to recommend that over two-thirds of our student body be rezoned,” Gaggero said. “SPARK will be a shell of itself.”

The current enrollment numbers at Midtown Cluster schools and how those numbers change with a new Inman Elementary School. (APS)

Gaggero said the process was a difficult one as parents new to the area had to quickly learn the ins and outs of what schools consider when rezoning, such as types of housing, diversity of school-age students, walkability, and incomes.

“I don’t like in general [how systems works] when they pit parents against each other, and I think unfortunately, that’s been our reality for the past couple of years,” Gaggero said, noting school fights over mask mandates, in-person learning, and virtual classrooms.

Amy Hayward, also a Springdale Park mom, said the dual campus scenario would afford the Midtown Cluster and APS time to analyze more closely post-COVID data to determine long-term solutions to overcrowding.

“The K-5 scenario is a short-term solution, and an unnecessarily disruptive burden on our community, resources and students in the midst of a global pandemic,” Hayward said.

Shraddha Srivastav Strennen lives in Piedmont Heights and has two toddlers attending Morningside Elementary. She’s happy with the new K-5 school option. A dual campus could become a massive campus and no longer be a small neighborhood school where she wants her children to learn.

“I get it. I feel like I feel their pain,” she said of the Springdale Park parents complaints. “For all of us, whatever it is, changing and growth is hard.

“But I think children thrive in more of a community environment, and this feel like a better long-term solution.”

Rezoning would not take effect until the beginning of the 2023-24 school year for the new school if approved.

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