District recommends closing Park Lane and Spalding Drive elementary schools and proposes redistricting plans for Zones 2 and 4

Tarika Peace presented final recommendations for two separate elementary‑school closure, consolidation and redistricting plans — Zone 2 (Park Lane/Conley Hills area) and Zone 4 (Spalding Drive and Sandy Springs region).

On Zone 2, Peace said the new Conley Hills replacement school — a multi‑story prototype with 53 classrooms and an 850 state capacity — will open in August 2025. Because Conley Hills’ replacement facility increases capacity and Park Lane Elementary’s enrollment has been below the board’s 450‑student threshold since 2019, staff recommended closing Park Lane at the end of the 2024–25 school year and redrawing attendance zones. The plan would move Park Lane students south of Central Avenue to Hapeville Elementary and north of Central Avenue to Hamilton E. Holmes Elementary; additional balancing moves would shift portions of Hamilton E. Holmes and Asa Hillier attendance areas into the new Conley Hills replacement school. Zone 2 impacts: staff estimate 251 current K–4 students would be affected; 34 rising fifth graders are eligible to remain at their current school if parents provide transportation.

On Zone 4, Peace said Spalding Drive Elementary enrolls about 347 students and has remained under the 450 threshold since 2015. The recommended plan would close Spalding Drive at the end of 2024–25 and redistrict students to neighboring schools, with many communities reassigned to Hurd’s Ferry, Woodland or Eisen Springs elementary schools depending on neighborhood; Peace said staff engaged the community in three forums and an online comment portal and considered primary criteria (proximity, capacity, projected enrollment) and secondary criteria (traffic, previous rezonings, feeder alignments, program balancing).

Peace provided participation metrics: for Zone 2, 79 participants in small‑group sessions and 156 comments plus 32 emails; for Zone 4, 512 participants and more than 2,400 online/in‑person comments and 227 emails. Board members asked for travel‑time and mileage estimates for affected students and for more detailed fiscal savings information; operations staff said residential development forecasts had been incorporated into enrollment projections.

The board held both items for additional discussion: no closure votes were taken at this meeting. Peace said families in affected zones would be notified in March and that proposed zone changes would take effect in August 2025 if approved.

Ending: The board left both plans on the discussion calendar for the next meeting and asked staff for more detailed commute/mileage data, the exact count of impacted in‑zone students, and financial analyses of anticipated savings from closures.