Fulton County board approves closure of Park Lane Elementary, redraws zones for new Conley Hills school

The Fulton County Board of Education voted 4 to 3 on Feb. 20, 2025, to close Park Lane Elementary at the end of the 2024–25 school year and approve a redistricting plan tied to the opening of a new Conley Hills replacement school in August 2025.

Board members and staff said the decision is intended to balance enrollment and capacity in the Northeast/South Fulton region after the district builds a new Conley Hills facility funded through the 2022 Education Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (E‑SPLOST). The new Conley Hills prototype is designed for kindergarten through grade 5, includes 53 classrooms and a state capacity of 850 students.

Superintendent Kendall Looney said the district cannot open a taxpayer‑funded school that will sit “at less than 45% capacity,” calling that outcome “fiscally irresponsible.” Operations staff and presenters told the board that Conley Hills’s replacement opens with capacity far above its current enrollment (about 375), and that closing an underenrolled older building would improve efficiency and reduce long‑term operating costs.

District staff presented the zone 2 recommendation as impacting five elementary schools; they estimated 251 current kindergarten through grade 4 students would be affected by the closure. The district also said that, as a provision of board policy AD, 34 rising fifth graders would be eligible to remain at their current school if a parent provides transportation. Staff said amendments requested by the board during an earlier review reduced the number of students affected by specific redistricting moves from 84 to about 29 in one part of the plan.

Board members who opposed the closure emphasized neighborhood access and parent engagement. Board Member Jennifer Gregory said she would not support the Main Street‑style decisions in similar cases and that organizational